Re: gEDA-user: Removing soldermask over traces/polygons in PCB?

[Steve Meier <smeier@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Do you really want bare copper or would bare copper with the surface
finish be ok? If so create one or more "devices", with land patterns, to
represent the exposed contacts. Then place these phony devices on the
board. I like to put them in the schematic, perhaps connected to a
ground plane, as well.

Steve Meier


On Wed, 2005-01-19 at 03:26, Xtian Xultz wrote:
> Em Qua 19 Jan 2005 01:13, Randall Nortman escreveu:
> > I would like to create areas of bare copper, with no soldermask.  In
> > particular, I'd like to create grounded guard bands around the edges
> > of my board to protect against ESD during handling of the board.  To
> > see what I'm trying to do, have a look at the last two slides of:
> >
> >   http://www.cae.wisc.edu/~benedict/pcbpres.pdf
> >
> > As far as I can tell, only pads seem to clear the soldermask.  Is it
> > possible to get PCB to clear the soldermask over a trace or polygon?
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Randall Nortman
> 
> AFAIK, no. I sometimes do it to increase the current capability of a trace. To 
> do it, I use the postscript output, convert it to .sk with pstoedit and opens 
> it with sketch, and there I edit the way I want (and place some logos, 
> figures, and stuff). And then export to .ps and send to my fab.