kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Lorenzo Marcantonio <l.marcantonio@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 8 Sep 2010, Alex G wrote:

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> Oyvind,
>
> I believe it would make sense, for the D-SUB connectors, to only place
> the pad on the back side, so as to free up space for tracks on the front
> side. I'm not sure if this is necessarily wise (problems with
> through-hole plating?), but I'm throwing it as an idea. What do you think?

Usually PTH components should have pads on both faces for 3 reasons:
1) A pad on a single layer is prone to delamination (especially if you
need to rework it; the plating barrel and the opposite pad have great
effect on mechanical strength;
2) If there is a plating barrel and hole clearance is correct the whole
hole would be filled with solder (better electrical and mechanical
performance);
3) You would forfait access to *all* the other layers (for example
supply planes); also is almost impossible to route all the pins from an
HD connector on one layer keeping solder pads big enough for good
joints.

Since at the moment kicad hasn't a padstack facility (i.e. for reducing
pads on the inner/components layers) it should be user that, only when
needed, would remove the pad.

--
Lorenzo Marcantonio
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