Using Eagle 7.2.0 Lite, how do I know if a new part  has plated through holes? 9as opposed to pads top and bottom).T

On 10/03/15 15:34, Tony Wright wrote:

Hi

A new user.

Using Eagle 7.2.0 Lite, how do I know if a new part  has plated through

holes? (as opposed to pads top and bottom).

Thanks

That's a meaningless question.

Parts don't have "plated-through" anything. Parts have symbols and

packages. Packages have pads, which can be either SMD or through-hole.

The latter have a drill size and a restring (and elongation), from which

Eagle produces the necessary data for plating and drilling your PCB.

No mention of plated through holes there.

Now, what you do with your PCB data afterwards is up to you. If you send

it to a professional PCB fab, they will probably through-plate all the

holes unless you tell them otherwise.

Plated through holes are controlled by the rules of the board house.

Most commonly the board house will plate the hole if there is copper lands

on both sides of the board at the position of the drill.

If there is copper only on one side or neither side, the hole will be non

plated. That drilling occurs later in the manufacturing process. It pays to

learn the sequence of events in the manufacturer of a PCB then you can see

what is controlled by the CAD and what is controlled by the manufacturing

process.

You normally have to ask for a non plated hole if there is copper both

sides.

The board house will tell you how they wish to be advised of these needs.

HTH

Warren

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.

The eagle primitives 'via' and 'pad' are always ment to be plated. For non

plated holes, there is the 'hole' primitive.

For course if you drill your own vias and pads, you have to make sure they

are connected at both top and bottom. If its a pad, it may be difficult to

actually solder the pin on both sides, but there is no such thing as a

bottom only pad in eagle. Maybe there should be since farnell/cadsoft does

seem to target the low entry users..

To keep those types of drills separated, I made my own CAM that creates

separate drillfiles for nonplated (holes) and plated (vias/pads). For some

reason eagle puts up a warning when I do that, but its very natural for me

to separate them and manufacturing house never complained.