Re: gEDA-user: oblong via pads

[Dave N6NZ <n6nz@xxxxxxxx>]

phil@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>> I was wondering is it possible to have oblong visa instead of just round
>> visa? They would be especially better when making heat transfer boards
>> and hand soldering.
> 
> TJ
> 
> You can make this as a footprint, but not as a native PCB via.  To do it,
> you'd add a pin (the via), an SMT pad with rounded corners of the size you
> want, and set the mask clearance so that your vias will still get masked
> over.  It should work.  This would be a footprint, not a via, though.

Just want to remind TJ that if you do a pin+pad in a footprint to get 
the oblong bad, it kills the thermal tool, since it won't thermal a pad. 
  You have to turn off "new line clears poly" and draw the thermal yourself.

For some reason, this surprised me.  I had been doing SMT boards and 
happily drawing thermals by hand, and then made some through-hole 
boards, and happily used the thermal tool. Then I made some footprints 
with pad+pin stacks, and was confused when the thermal tool refused to 
work.  It should not have been a surprise, I guess it was an 
under-caffeinated day. :)

I'm working on a design for the local robot club where I want to make 
the board as "newbie friendly" as possible in every way.  This includes 
making it approachable to those that may be timid about soldering. So I 
made easy-solder footprints by putting a whonking-big oblong pad on the 
solder side of the footprint, and left the normal annulus on the 
component side.  This kills less routing capacity on the component side.

-dave


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