Hi Guys,
i’m trying to recreate the footprint of a IX_Industrial connector link, my problem is that I don’t know what do they mean with “Metal Mask Layout” in page 2, (is it the solder mask? the solder paste?),
trying to figure it out, I superimposed both drawings in GIMP but it just left me more confused
Do you guys have a suggestion? or any idea what is it about ? My footprint looks like this at the moment:
Here also a view made with Maui’s excellent StepUp
Others who have experience with this may want to chime in, but at a guess I think you are right. Make the shield pads fit in the suggested mask area to allow larger solder fillets to form for mechanical strength. (You can offset the drill hit area within a pad to allow overhangs like that.)
I doubt this is for the solder fillet. It is way too large of an area for that. I guess this is sort of an example layout for shielding. But i am really not sure what they mean with it.
@der.ule something to consider is that the official lib uses “SH” for the shield pins. Might be worth using the same as you can then integrate your footprint better with the overall infrastructure.
Interesting. For my libraries I used pin 0 for shield. Probably because I was stuck thinking pin NUMBER. (Forgetting the old, and best forgotten, libraries would randomly use A and K for diodes and C, B, and E for transistor, etc.)
Now I have to decide if I should change my libraries or just let old dogs lie… I’ll probably change it and deal with the consequences on my existing designs (not many, but too many to immediately change all for a library update.)
The metal mask layout is describing how you should expose your copper pads for soldering of the connectors frame, equally ensuring sufficient pad size to prevent easy tearing, In reality you can simplify the shapes and tie it to a ground plane, again make it hard to tear off.
Hi @der.ule
thanks for using my StepUp tools 
Do you know you can also use a Scaled Image Plane in FreeCAD as a refcerence to design the footprint?
PS would you mind to share the final fp to kicad fp library?
For that he would need to put in some work to get it complient with the library convention.
One of the things is he needs to change the pin names of the shield pins. The pin 1 marker is missing and at least in the screenshot there is no silk screen outline. (I doubt it has been hidden as i am not aware of any setting that hides normal silk line but shows the silk reference designator.)
@Rene_Poschl, @Rerouter, @SembazuruCDE thanks a lot guys, I never though on soldering the shield from the top side for ruggedness, but looking at the size of those shield pins it seems that it may be necessary, most probably, I will need to create some shield pad to fullfill that function, my only concern is the back part as the shield pad is exactly in front of my signals, with not a lot space for routing.
@maui I love your software, and I will sing its praises on all my post if necessary 
, I did not know that! thank, i will give it a try! . About the footprint, no problem with sharing it, I will improved as @Rene_Poschl suggested.
The datasheet says it is “designed for reflow”, which is the soldering process used for SMD. Datasheets often contain “serving suggestions”, so if your production engineers can develop a reliable wave solder process normally used for THT then that probably works just as well.
There are several components that are traditionally used in THT which are now being designed for reflow, because if you can cut out the wave solder step it saves money.
I am 99% sure “metal mask” means top copper layer (in this case).
@bobc I missed that note in the datasheet, now it all makes sense, still don’t like the shape of the part on the back, so I left my footprint like this:
@maui: Here you go Hirose_IX_IX61G-X-10P_0.5mm.kicad_mod (5.0 KB)
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