Re: gEDA-user: Test pads in PCB

[sdb@xxxxxxxxxx (Stuart Brorson)]

I am very pleased to see how much intelligent discussion my little
comments have sparked.  This is a very educational thread.

> Hopefully I'm not putting words in Stuarts mouth, but we're really 
> talking about 2 different things in this thread.  Some of the comments 
> here are related to testing a bare board (no components soldered down 
> yet).  In that case, the component pads are probably sufficient.
> 
> The 2nd case, which I think is the one Stuart was initially asking 
> about, is for automated testing of a board which has been already 
> assembled.  In that case, you really do want test pads on all the nodes 
> and preferably on one side of the board.  We used to do that at a place 
> I worked and it was pretty cool.  They'd stick a fully assembled 
> analog/mixed signal board into the tester and catch nearly all of the 
> boards with manufacturing (placement/soldering) defects.

Thanks, Dan.  I am indeed talking about testing fully assembled
boards, not raw PCBs.  That's why probing the component pads isn't
possible or applicable.

Stuart