Homebrew PCBs

Some one ask me what I use to route my pcbs. I use Eagle but I hand
route all of my traces.

Ive found that I can logically route my traces manually much better
than autorouting them. I takes a lot more time but there are much less
via's to contend with by placing manually.

   A few tips for using eagle. Place you components first and then
align them to a grid from their origins. Set you grid to .2 or .4 and
your alt to .001. Align your components symetricaly and opposite if
you can and try to keep the space between like components the same  
Place all of the origins on the coarse grid first and align them
exactly to the grid using the alternate settings within .001. Then set
you grid to .1 and alt .025 and move them where they need to be. This
will be you final location. Look at the unrouted lines and rotate
your components then use ratsnest to find the best orientation of the
component so that the ratsnets lines cross the least. This will also
show you alternative component locations that might offer less
ratsnest lines just remember to keep them on the .1 grid. After that
your on you own

 If it is simple you can try autorouting using the horizontal or
vertical default from the sample programs. I found that by varying the
routing grid by as little as .1 can change from 85 to 100 percent
autorouting. So don't be afraid to try several different grid sizes.

But for more complicated boards. Manual routing is the best! It takes
more time and trial and error but by first placing all of your
components on a .100 grid and them routing down to what ever pitch
you are comfortable with it is easy to use the route command to add
the traces. There will be some componants that will not align to the
grid but route will still connect the traces once you learn how to use it.

Regards
Dennis Waggoner