kicad-developers team mailing list archive

["Brian F. G. Bidulock" <bidulock@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Lorenzo,

On Thu, 09 Sep 2010, Lorenzo Marcantonio wrote:

> On Thu, 9 Sep 2010, Alex G wrote:
> 
> >Wouldn't it then be feasible to create the normal 7.4mm pad on the back,
> >and leave a smaller pad (say 4mm) on the front (and maybe inner layers),
> >or is this getting too complicated to be of any practical use?
> 
> This is what you usually do with padstacks, but kicad has no support for
> them... how do you specify inner layers?

I'm working on a couple of things in this regard (removal of
non-functional pads, for one); however, what Alex describes above can
pretty much already be done with the module editor:

  1. Define a pad (standard) that is on both sides of the board that is
     4mm and has a hole (set to the size you need for the pin).  This
     will be interpreted by PCBNEW as a 4mm pad on all copper layers.

  2. Define a pad (virtual) only on the back side of the board that is
     7.4mm.  Do not give it a hole.  It could also exist on the back
     mask layer.

I think this will give you a 4mm pad on the front and inner layers, and
a 7.4 mm pad on top of the 4mm pad on the back.  I'm not sure whether
DRC checks and ratsnests are going to say that one of these pads on the
back (7.4mm or 4mm) is unconnected, but that's a different matter.

Even still, the 7.4mm pad could probably be moved 1/10th of mil
off-center from the 4mm pads to allow the two to be connected with a
0.1mil long trace.

--brian