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best text size?

fritzz

I am making components for libraires, but I don't want all different font sizes as I use my custom ones and the standard ones.

 

What is the most common size so I can try to match as I make mine?

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  • Hi,

     

    Your objectives are to make silkscreen text printable and readable.

     

    Check with your board house what minimum silkscreen width they can

    reliably print.  Olimex, for example, specify 10mil (0.254mm), other

    board houses give a figure of 8mil or sometimes 5mil.

     

    You will then need to choose a text size that is comfortable to read

    when assembling/debugging boards.  I go for 50mil (1.27mm) but this is

    quite large.  The best way to find out what works is to print a

    life-sized copy of the silkscreen layer.

     

    To meet the silkscreen width requirement of your board house you will

    need a suitable "Ratio" setting.  I use 20% which, for 50mil text, gives

    10mil thickness.

     

    You will see that most of the EAGLE standard libraries use 50mil text

    and either 8% or 10% ratio, giving rather feeble 4mil and 5mil

    silkscreen widths respectively.  Some board houses will struggle to

    print these.  When I use standard parts, I usually "SMASH" them and

    change the ratio of "tNames"-layer text to 20%*.

     

    For non-silkscreen drawings or text (e.g. "tValues" and "tDocu" which

    are generally not printed on the PCB), which are used to produce

    assembly/test documentation, you have much more freedom.

     

    In schematic symbols, 0.07 inch text (with 8% ratio) is standard.

     

    In a thread on "eagle.userchat.eng" in November last year, Jeorge Garcia

    of Cadsoft proposed a set of standards for libraries.  I'd be interested

    to see if this took off.

     

     

    Andrew

    0xADF

     

    • display none tOrigins bOrigins; group all; smash (>0 0); display last;

    display none tNames bNames; group all; change size 50mil (>0 0); change

    ratio 20; display last

     

    On 23/06/2012 02:25, d r wrote:

    I am making components for libraires, but I don't want all different font sizes as I use my custom ones and the standard ones.

     

    What is the most common size so I can try to match as I make mine?

     

     

     

     

  • in reply to Former Member

    Thanks very much.

    I'm going to use 50mil and 10% and propose that becomes the standard. image

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