Any way to have clearance from the copper of the mounting hole to the edge of the board? I was not able to find any way to pull it back between the board setup and footprint override settings.
Unfortunately no 
It would be FANTASTIC if KiCAD could do something like this as right now the only way to manage this is
- move such pads inboard
- custom pad creating a chord
- discuss with the fabricator to instruct them to pull the copper back
- YOLO it and risk burred copper due to the routing bit
Right now with Mentor Xpedition we are doing #3
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I don’t see this as a significant problem.
Just draw a small zone in the corner, drop a pad with a small annular ring, and assign it to the zone’s net (presumably ground). Then fill with no thermal clearance.
Probably take 30 seconds per corner.
Got it, thank you! Hopefully it’ll be added at some point, but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing a setting somewhere.
Clipping pads by the board edge is generally a very bad Idea. The method from 3Dogs is good though. Just use a smaller pad that fits, and add a copper zone around it.
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in general, the fabricator will pull that copper back for you to whatever minimum they need.
sort of idea #3.5 from above.
you can also try the “margin” layer to bring the copper back from the edge.
That is a very flawed assumption. The results vary between the manfacturer modyfing your gerbers to do the pull back, but you can also get PCB’s with smeared copper and shorts on their edges, and other manufacturers may bluntly refuse your PCB’s, or start mailing you to ask what the intention is.
And for me those are all bad options. I don’t like them modifying my gerbers. I don’t want bad PCB’s and I don’t want delays, or waste their time. I.e: The only good way is to pay a bit attention to what you do and generate quality data, that goes though the process without further issues.
In general I agree with you, I have a note in my fab drawing that says they’re not allowed to change anything without approval.
but… for this particular thing with mounting holes near the edge I think letting the fabricator pull the copper back is ok. because you wouldn’t (shouldn’t) have put any traces under or inside the mounting hole anyway. so if any of the bad things you mention happen it won’t make a difference in the final board. If I was making 10000 of something I’d do it differently.
When using edge plating, pulling back the copper from the edge would ruin the board. With castellated holes the copper also goes right up to the edge of the PCB. There are a lot of different ways people want their boards made. Assumptions go wrong, and if it goes wrong because a PCB manufacturer made a faulty assumption annoying. If it goes wrong because you’re to lazy yourself, it’s a good lesson to be more attentive the next time.
you’re going off-topic. we were talking about mounting holes, not edge plating or castellated boards… those are different things.
You’re attempting to defend an undefendable position. Gerber files don’t have mounting holes nor pads. They just have copper features (except for the lastest Gerber standard, which is rare it the wild).
You are relying on your PCB manufacturer interpreting the gerber files in some particular way. That is already beyond what they should do.
But I agree it’s a senseless conversation. Is it OK for you if I delete the last couple of posts from this thread?