Working with Solder Stencil openings

[Rene_Poschl]

@iitgrad

which layer is the one to use for creating a stencil.

F.Paste and B.Paste. See What is the meaning of the layers in pcb_new and in the footprint editor? (KiCad 5 and earlier)

@iitgrad

After reading other posts I’m thinking there is a default size reduction that is global across the entire PCB that can be set but I wasn’t able to find it in pcb editor.

File->board settings (somewhere in there)

@iitgrad

but I have 1 QFN accelerometer part that is very small so I want to get the stencil perfect if possible.

Make sure the center pad is made correctly (reduce paste coverage and paste areas split up. All footprints that ship with kicad have a reduction to 65% which is in the middle of the range i found suggested by manufacturers). Otherwise, you run into problems at the reflow stage (bad connections of outer pads as there is too much solder in the middle, problems with trapped gases, …).