Re: gEDA-user: solder mask on polygon

[Kai-Martin Knaak <kmk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 04 Apr 2009 22:04:53 -0400, gene glick wrote:

> Can I turn off the solder mask on a rectangle or polygon? 


Unfortunately, there is no way to draw inverted polygons in the solder 
mask. This has been talked about on the list. But nobody stood up to add 
this feature, yet.

My (dirty) workaround is to create footprints with zero width lines. 
After these are converted to zero width pads, I set their mask clearance 
to some large value. With the square flag set it will induce a 
rectangular hole in the solder mask.

My fab didn't complain about the zero width pads in the gerbers. I guess, 
they are used to such tricks. The pcb was produced fine with the expected 
holes in solder mask.  


> I have a
> surface area of copper that will be used as the heat sink for a TO-220.
>   I don't want the copper covered but how can I disable it?

In this case, just include a big, fat pad in the footprint where the 
heatsink should go. If you don't provide a number or a name, pcb won't 
attempt to connect it to anything. Make sure, polygon clearance and mask 
clearance are set to sensible values.

---<(kaimartin)>---
-- 
Kai-Martin Knaak
http://lilalaser.de/blog



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