Does anyone know which layer I should be using to show that I want a big rectangular hole in my PCB design?
I basically have large capacitors on a tiny PCB, so I want to put those two capacitors on their side inside this hole, so that only half of their dimensions for protruding from the top and bottom planes.
Thanks!
Ask your PCB supplier.
All of them just like you would any other hole. The only time you would have a hole on select layers would be blind or buried vias.
And especially on your drill drawing/manufacturing notes - to highlight it to the manufacturer.
That isn't exactly true.rrpilot:
All of them just like you would any other hole. The only time you would have a hole on select layers would be blind or buried vias.
He wants a rectangular hole. And he probably wants it not to be plated. This would typically be on it’s own layer, or on the same layer as the board outline. I would ask the fab myself, as different ones have their own preferences.
That isn’t exactly true.
He wants a rectangular hole. And he probably wants it not to be plated.
You are exactly correct. After trying to Google for something I couldn’t find the exact words to, I finally found the defining term - “cutout”.
So, if you want to place a cutout on your PCB for the fab to cut away, as in a rectangular hole for my capacitors to suspend within, just outline the cutout area with the Dimension layer. Then, as mentioned above, a good label within this area would further communicate the cut away intention.
Another reason I was looking for a specific layer to use was because I needed EAGLE to understand that it needed to avoid this cutout area. I tried the Milling layer, but when I autorouted, EAGLE put traces all over this area. However, the Dimension layer forced EAGLE to avoid this region.