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Freerouting

Freerouting

Freerouting is an advanced autorouter for all PCB programs that support the standard Specctra or Electra DSN interface.


EDA Integrations

KiCad

  1. Open KiCad 6.0 or newer

  2. Start Tools / Plugin and Content Manager (Ctrl+M)

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  1. Search for the Freerouting plugin

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  1. Click on the Install button

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  1. Open you PCB design in PCB Editor

  2. (Optional) Remove routed tracks and via from the design

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  1. Start Freerouting from the Tools / External Plugins menu

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  1. Wait until the Freerouting app exits and the plugin loads your routed design

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Autodesk EAGLE

  1. Download the latest eagle2freerouter ulp file

  2. Start EAGLE and open in the control panel of Eagle for example the design my_design.brd.

  3. Choose in the Files pulldown-menu of Eagle the item "execute ULP" and select the Eagle2freerouter ulp file. A file with name my_design.dsn is generated.

  4. Start the router, push the "Open Your Own Design" button and select my_design.dsn in the file chooser.

  5. After making some changes to the design with the router select "export Eagle session script" in the Files pulldown-menu. A file with name my_design.scr is generated.

  6. Choose in the Files pulldown-menu of Eagle the item "execute Script" and select my_design.scr.

Target 3001!

  1. Freerouting is accesible directly from the GUI menu in Actions / Automatisms and assistants / Autorouter / Freerouting autorouter...

Open Freerouting dialog window

  1. There you can select the signals (=nets) to be routed

If no special signal is selected, all signals are affected

  1. Next you can influence the algorithm

Most users have to install FreeRouting once, some will also have to install Java first

  1. They will get the Freerouting installer from https://github.com/freerouting/freerouting/releases/

Select layers and their functions

  1. Normally the user does not have to change the settings and can click directly on the [Start] button. So then it is a one-click solution. After the creation of the session file SES, Target automatically asks, if the results shall be used

Accept results from SES file

  1. The tracks and vias are imported immediately into the TARGET project file

Results are imported

pcb-rnd

Using the standalone freerouting application

  1. Download the latest freerouting-1.8.0.jar file from the Releases page

  2. Start pcb-rnd and load your layout.

  3. Export the layout as Specctra DSN (File / Export... / Specctra DSN).

  4. Start the router by running the freerouting-1.8.0.jar file, push the "Open Your Own Design" button and select the exported .dsn file in the file chooser.

  5. Do the routing.

  6. When you're finished, export the results into a Specctra session file (File / Export Specctra Session File). The router will generate a .ses file for you.

  7. Go back to pcb-rnd and import the results (File / Import autorouted dsn/ses file...). Track widths and clearances during autorouting are based on the currently selected route style during DSN export.

Using freerouting from within pcb-rnd

  1. Download the latest freerouting-1.8.0-linux-x64.zip from the Releases page

  2. Unzip it and rename the top directory freerouting-1.8.0-linux-x64 to freerouting.net (the default location is /opt/freerouting.net)

  3. Start pcb-rnd and ensure that this directory is specified in (File / Preferences / Config Tree / Plugins / ar_extern / freerouting_net...); the location of the executable can be customised.

  4. Load your layout

  5. Open the external autorouter window with (Connect / Automatic Routing / External autorouter...)

  6. Select the freerouting.net tab, and push the "Route" button.

  7. Go back to the layout and inspect the autorouted networks. Track widths and clearances during autorouting are based on the currently selected route style when the autorouter is started.