I’m designing a tiny board, which hasn’t much room for silkscreen markings (at least I can’t fit them with the minimal 0.8mm height the manufacturer requires).
I did found this project though:
https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/arduino/original/4X/d/e/c/dec5610dcff61ebdb7c199993abe71946387359c.jpeg
I looks like numbers on the inner PTH are made of copper “traces” instead, which can follow the much narrower measurements of the traces.
I could find hints how to make those. My guess it, they weren’t “draw” using the trace tool?
So what is the trick here?
As so often: “Just look at your tool!” (there is a text tool in the PCB editor).
Sorry for bothering.
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You can just move the standard ref text items from the silkscreen to the copper layer (and make the font size smaller)
That board looks like it doesn’t have a copper fill there, so the characters are copper and there’s solder mask covering them. If you have a copper fill, you can also write to the mask layer. It reveals the copper, which can look cool, especially with enig plating.
Thanks for the hints. So the idea to write to the mask layer is, that it generates a “negative” and in the further process the revealed copper gets the ENIG plating. That might even be a benefit for readability.
I’ll check which way will work best. But in the end I might take this route:
The board has two 1x3 pin headers. I’ll put those close to the circuit with a 1.27 pitch and place the same rows of 2.54 pitch in front of it. So it will be breadboard friendly with marking that use and those can be cut off, if space is tight and can even be grind down to castellated holes. Losing the marking in that step should be no problem. (in a way that’s what the board in the attached image does a bit enhanced)
I got that idea when PCB manufacturer added this way his mark to our PCB long time ago (previous century).
I liked it and since than at all our PCBs we had golden our company name and pcb name and revision.
Few years ago we start to use new contract manufacturer and he prefers to use wave soldering over hand soldering even if there are only one or two THT elements at PCB.
Wave soldering is not very compatible with such inscriptions as tin fills the letters. I stopped using this at bottom.
I just wrote this to warn you.
You can also make footprints as copper “symbols” that you can plop on top or bottom. You can make them with soldermask covering for a subtle look, or remove soldermask so they pop.