kicad-developers team mailing list archive

["jean-pierre.charras@..." <jean-pierre.charras@...>]

Dick Hollenbeck a écrit :
> On my boards most all components are SMT with a handful of through hole
> components. I asked my board manufacturer if they thought I needed
> thermal reliefs and they said no. I guess thermal reliefs are only for
> hand soldered components? If so, aren't hand soldered components
> typically fairly large pads with fairly large pad to pad distances?
>
> A wave machine or an SMT reflow process does not need thermal reliefs
> according to my board manufacturer. Does this information help,
> contradict, or confuse?
>
> Dick
I am thinking (but i can be wrong) the main advantage of thermal reliefs 
is to allow unsoldering defective components.
Mainly on multilayers (4 and more layers), without thermal reliefs, 
unsoldering thought pins is very difficult
(and unfortunately also with thermal reliefs, but it is ab bit more easy)
Of course soldering (by hand) these components is, by the way, more 
easy, so thermal reliefs are good but not mandatory.
SMD components do not have this problem.

So i am not surprising by your board manufacturer opinion.

--
Jean-Pierre CHARRAS

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Directeur d'études 2ieme année.
Génie Electrique et Informatique Industrielle 2
Institut Universitaire de Technologie 1 de Grenoble
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