gEDA-user: pcb pad, soldermask questions

[Allan Hessenflow <allanh-geda@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm just starting to use pcb and have a couple of questions.

First, are there any occassions where a pad pin number should be left
blank?  I can think of two possible times: one is where there is more than
one connected pad item for a given device pin, in which case it might make
sense to only give the pin number to one of the items, and the other is
for mechanical or fiducial elements where there aren't normally any
corresponding items in the bom/netlist.  I didn't see any examples of
either, so for now I've been giving every pad a pin number.

Secondly, is there any way to create a sharp outside 45 degree angle without
creating glitches in the soldermask?  The soldermask is currently being
created with glitches at the corners because square items are creating square
openings in the soldermask, rather than the radiused corners that would
result if it were truly a fixed distance expansion of the copper pads.
An example showing this is below; it is a result of trying to match a
manufacturer's recommended land pattern.  Obviously I could modify it by
rounding the corners to avoid the soldermask glitches, or I could use a
bunch of thinner rounded pad items to get arbitrarily close to a sharp corner
while still having clean soldermask borders.  Neither of those seem
particularly satisfactory, so if there isn't a better way I'll probably
live with the mask as it is.


Element["" "" "" "" 199606 196654 0 0 0 100 ""]
(
	Pad[-7275 -4775 -7275 4775 2750 2400 3950 "" "1" "square"]
	Pad[-4775 7275 -4375 7275 2750 2400 3950 "" "1" "square"]
	Pad[-4775 -7275 -4375 -7275 2750 2400 3950 "" "1" "square"]
	Pad[-6458 6150 -6150 6458 3100 2400 4300 "" "1" "square"]
	Pad[-6458 -6150 -6150 -6458 3100 2400 4300 "" "1" "square"]

	Pad[7275 -4775 7275 4775 2750 2400 3950 "" "2" "square"]
	Pad[4775 7275 4375 7275 2750 2400 3950 "" "2" "square"]
	Pad[4775 -7275 4375 -7275 2750 2400 3950 "" "2" "square"]
	Pad[6458 6150 6150 6458 3100 2400 4300 "" "2" "square"]
	Pad[6458 -6150 6150 -6458 3100 2400 4300 "" "2" "square"]

	ElementLine [-1500 -7675 1500 -7675 1000]
	ElementLine [-1500 7675 1500 7675 1000]
	ElementLine [-3900 0 -3900 0 2000]

	)


-- 
Allan N. Hessenflow      allanh@xxxxxxxxxxxx


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