Thank you for the advice and information, from both Mr. Lomax and Mr.
Wilson.
Ted
-----Original Message-----
From: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Monday, May 14, 2001 10:03 PM
To: Protel EDA Forum
Subject: Re: [PEDA] tenting vias on one layer
At 01:36 PM 5/14/01 -0500, Ted Tontis wrote:
> Is there a way to tent vias in Protel on one layer only? I would
>like to tent the vias on the top side of the PCB and leave the bottom one's
>open for ICT.
Here is a workaround:
It might be a good idea to convert the vias to pads with a specific pad
name. To do this, select them, run the Change command to change selected
vias to pads, and globally edit them to give them a unique name, like
TENT_TEST. I'll assume this has been done.
Then use a design rule on FREE-TENT_TEST to tent all of them.
Make sure they are all selected and nothing else. Using a reproducible
reference point, copy all of them to the clipboard.
Then unselect all, and paste the pads over their originals. Edit all of the
selected pads to move them to the Bottom Solder Mask layer. removing the
holes. Presumably they are all the same size; edit them all to provide
whatever clearance you want for the solder mask openings; if 4 mils
clearance is desired, then expand the pad dimensions by 8 mils.
This would be a way to get all the vias quickly configured in the desired
way. But it suffers from the defect that every change will require
adjustment of the solder mask blowouts; they will not automatically move
with the vias.
So, I'll suggest another way: create a through-hole component called TP, or
something like that. This component can have an expansion pad on the Bottom
Solder Mask layer, and it can be otherwise tented by design rule. If this
component is used to replace all the test vias, the solder mask pads will
move with the new "vias." The down side is that it may be necessary to
manually place all these TP components. If a board was sufficiently
complex, the spreadsheet might be used to export a set of locations, and
then the TP parts could be placed automatically from a file.
This is a job for Mr. Padstack, who, unfortunately, does not work for
Protel yet. Maybe next year.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Abdulrahman Lomax
P.O. Box 690
El Verano, CA 95433
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