Re: gEDA-user: Newbie PCB & gschem

[Bob Paddock <bpaddock@csonline.net>]

On Tuesday 18 May 2004 05:44 pm, Sascha Silbe wrote:

>  A document explaining the basics and
> the terminology (I still don't know what a "thermal" is) might help.

A "thermal" is usually used when connecting a pad or pin to an interlayer.

It is generally a shape of "X" or "+", where only the four end points connect
to the interlayer. 

If you do not use a "thermal" the entire interlayer plane becomes a heat-sink 
that sucks away the heat, hence thermal, making it impossible to solder that 
point, because you can never get it hot enough to melt the solder.