Tenting All Vias

e14softwareuk — Mon, 21 Jan 2019 13:45:12 GMT

Current Revision posted to Documents by e14softwareuk on 1/21/2019 1:45:12 PM

It can be a requirement for designs to have vias covered in solder mask - this helps prevent shorts, improved solderability and minimizes the chance of electrical shorts if the board comes into contact with other objects. However the opposite is often true for prototypes - the vias can be left open to make probing and debugging that much easier. It is easy to switch all vias between tented and open with just a short sequence of commands.

Each via can be controlled individually by bringing up the property dialog (right click > Properties).

If you have many vias this can be tedious and a different technique can be used. Apply the via filter (see image below) and then select all objects (CTRL+A).

Next select View | Object Inspector if not already active.

From the PCB Inspector panel the tenting option can be applied to all selected vias.

Don't try to the the View | Filter command to select the vias. This may appear to select all vias but the inspector will only operate on the one via.

Tags: pcb, howto, circuitstudio