kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Lorenzo Marcantonio <l.marcantonio@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Jun 23, 2014 at 08:39:45AM -0500, Dick Hollenbeck wrote:
> Why does PAD_CONN deserve a life and not PAD_THERMAL?  When does it end?

I'd say it ends when nothing in the code has a special use for it, and
apply 'duck typing' to the pads

- SMD is a plain pad, no connection between layers
- THT is a pad with an hole and connection between layers
- NPTH is a pad with an hole an no connection between layers

What's the difference in behaviour between SMD and CONN? AFAIK they have
the same behaviour. Unless, for example, zone filling would always keep
the CONN disconnected (just an example, I don't think it works that way).

Your thermal pad could for example be always connected to zones even
when thermal are specified, that would be one design choice (in fact
I added the THT-only fill to zones just for that)

The few PAD_CONN references I found are always in a same condition with
PAD_SMD (except the obvious read/write and display routines and the
check for no paste in the dialog) so they are in effect exactly like
PAD_SMD with a default layer set.

-- 
Lorenzo Marcantonio
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