I've been using Eagle for a couple years now in designing relatively simple circuits. I fabricate PCBs at home so they are single sided. I tend to like hand-routing all the traces too.

Sometimes there's that one trace that I can't figure out a clean way to route.

When that happens I just place a jumper wire on the top side. I put together a little how-to writeup. http://bot-thoughts.blogspot.com/2010/08/eagle-tips-jumper-wires.html

Comments more than welcome. Hope this helps someone out.

I plan to post up a few more tips like this in case it is of value.

 

Nice writeup, what I used to do was to draw in -0- ohm resistors where I needed jumpers, and yes, they do sell 0 ohm resistors just for this purpose in various physical sizes, for example:

http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/KOA-Speer/Z25YC/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMvcAs5GUBtMdZ7bg5EazsIc

And the problem is not limited to just single layer boards either, often you can produce a far more compact layout with less traces having to go around in circles if you use this method.

 

Hi.

I'm using KiCad, and the same technique with jumper wires.

Nice writeup, by the way, and keep'em coming.

 

A jumper is a component, so strictly speaking it should be placed on the schematics. Like a 0 ohm resistor as one example. But I can see the use of this for the hobbyist by all means. A trick I have used is to add jumpers as tracks on the top layer, then designing single sided PCBs. It will give good documentation and preserve DRC for say unrouted nets.

 

If using the toner transfer or a similar method try to stick to single sided boards, if sending program-created files out to have boards made it only makes sense to go double sided as the price really isn't any different. I also try to stick to 1 oz copper as a standard unless something is UHF or above where trace thickness can make a great variation in impedance matching. There's an entire science in building stuff above 500 MHz especially if any amount of signal power or switching circuitry is involved.