I have designed a small board containing an interface circuit and a simple switching power supply. Due to the presence of the latter, I had to add some copper fills, some of them including several PTH component pin holes in their interior. Then, when I had a look at the 3D view of the board, I noticed that the copper layer seems to have covered the included holes:
Nevertheless, I checked the technology files and everything seems fine: only the solder mask extended over the pin holes. In sum my question is: is the 3D view of the layer buggy or am I doing something wrong?
Looks like a graphic artefact, where the mechanical holes are created before the copper fill is being created in the 3D engine.
If the PCBnew editor window shows it correctly and more importantly the gerber viewer(s) show that the gerbers are correct you have nothing to worry.
If you want it logged with the developers, this is the place to report bugs:
PS: the gerber files will have copper over all mechanical holes that are plated, that’s how the CAM software actually knows which holes are PTH and which are NPTH (non plated through holes).
It is a graphical artifact of the 3D viewer, and an indication that the OP didn’t enable thermals on those pads. If thermals were enabled there would be individual spokes radiating over the drill hole from the center (where the pin is) to the filled plane. It seems that the 3D viewer doesn’t “drill” out plane connections to the center of the holes.
I haven’t been bothered by it enough to submit a bug report. And, it isn’t critical (IMHO) enough to be fixed for v5.
Could you provide me a pcbnew file that shows the issue?
I remind that if you have a zone fill, it has to be “filled” (processed) in pcbnew (press B) to be displayed correct in 3DViewer. Also, the options “Remove holes” in 3DViewer must be enabled.
I seem to be wrong. I’m running a really recent nightly (July 1st build) and I notice that the thermal spokes don’t cover the hole. I’m not sure when that was changed, and I don’t find a setting to un-fix it. Here is an example:
Kammutierspule,
Attached please find a copy of the PCBNew file: however I just tried the “Remove holes” option in the 3D viewer and it works perfectly.2018-07-02_Arduino_UART_file.kicad_pcb (71.7 KB)
Just remember, this option is in the v4 to work around the visual glitch, to make the eye-candy better. It doesn’t affect gerbers or what you see in the editor canvas in PCBnew.
The option should be found in the 3D viewer:
Preferences -> Drawing options -> Show holes
I am not sure about it, since I am using the Italian
localization of KiCAD, and for me it is
Preferenze->Opzioni di disegno->Mostra i fori nelle zone
@Joan_Sparky
On the V5 version I have installed: Preferences, “Render Options”, “Show holes in zones”.
This feature exists because on complex boards with lots of zones it can take a while to pre-calculate the 3D representation of the board, also it may generate heavy data for old GPUs.
@SembazuruCDE,
effectively I did not enabled the thermal pads nor the thermal vias for the shapes touched by the copper layers, since the board is itself quite small that I am confident that the higher heating power necessary to solder the components is more than compensated by lower track impedance so obtained.