I want to make a plated via with its size = diameter, in order to place it in an already-existing pad, like this:
(The top view vias’s holes are not rendered here correctly, but the holes are inside the large pads)
I want to make a plated through hole without it being “seen” as via because the manufacturer’s analyzer sees the via and it spots the really small OAR I have created. The OAR in reality is not the OAR from the via, because on both top and bottom of the PCB, I have pads/copper pours.
Welcome to the forum!
If you place a via in an exposed pad -which is often done for thermal relief - this is fine and no problem at all. See this KiCad footprint as an example:
I understand that you want via hole diameter = via pad diameter and don’t understand why.
There is nothing against placing standard via (pad diameter bigger then hole diameter) at such existing pads. Typically that are pads placed there already in footprint.
You have to understand that in real process there are tolerances. What if you have the via pad diameter = 0.3mm and via hole diameter = 0.3mm and then hole is drilled with 0.1mm offset.
Having via pad diameter bigger will allow to notice if you place such via too close to the edge of your existing pad.
During fabrication, for the hole to be properly plated trouh, there must be copper on each side for the chemical process to work. So you must have an annular ring around the hole.
also in you case you want to use the via as thermal junction, so you need plenty of copper around the hole to draw the heat away.
According to the OP there are pads/zones on top and bottom of the board so the annular ring doesn’t matter.
I suspect the OPs aim is to get vias without incurring an extra charge for them, not sure if the determination of what is a via is just down to the through hole size or not.
if there is copper on both side, then to have an outer ring or not on the via will not change anything to the Gerber output.
So it will not be seen by the fab house.
exactly this is what I want. Vias without incurring an extra charge for them (since what I want to make is just a plated hole, not a via) . But yes it turns out that even thought the fab house at the beggining of uploading the gerber could see the via I made, after the analysis, they retracted the extra cost of that vias’ annual ring, since it doesnt matter since its inside a pad (on both top and bottom copper).
In Designspark PCB, I could make a plated via or PTH, and make its diameter=hole size. And I was just confused why I couldnt do that in KiCad.
Either way, Its solved.
Do someone charge for PTH via and not charge for PTH hole?
@Piotr
We buy from eurocircuits.
When designing a plated or unplated hole (diameter=hole size), its just a hole with no extra charge.
If I design a via with diameter != hole size, then this gets charged based on the annual ring.
But! If I buy the PCB from china (jlcpcb for example that I use), they dont care what I design, they will charge me 2€/ 5 PCBs and I cant sleep at night, constantly thinking if the quality will turn up good or bad.
Like look how they messed up my vias on this type-C connector:
They couldnt do the smaller drills with the annual ring I asked, so they enlarged the holes and in order not to make them short each other they removed part of the top/bottom copper of the vias.
-Will it work? Definitely
-Is it what I ordered/uploaded? No.
-Did they mentioned that these vias got changed that way? No, they let you spot it on your own.
-Am I happy? with 2€ for 5 pcbs yes.
I have never heard about such calculations. We were charged for count of holes (all holes) but it was about 30 years ago.
What you show are pads not vias. Via is not destined to anything be soldered to it and typically masked with solder mask.
I suppose you all the time were speaking about pads using word via. It is why I asked about charging for vias and not for pads.
Now I understand differently what you said before. If they charge based on annual ring than may be it is a question of how many gold is used for your PCB. If your holes in that big rectangle pad are with annual ring or not the opened copper size will be the same and the gold use will also be the same (if they do it after solder mask - I don’t know) so may be it is simply not important if you will have holes = pad size or not.
This is odd, I have only come across via limits because the drilling takes time and consumes fragile fine drill bits. These limits only normally get hit these days on RF boards with many via fences.
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