Greetings all, thanks for reading.
I’m curious what I have to do (if anything) to end up with a specific hole size. For example, if I draw a 5mm (using Eagle 5.2), do I get a 5mm hole in the finished product? Or is it drilled 5mm then plated to something less?
Also, is there a list somewhere of available drill sizes? Is 5mm even something that’s doable? I think I saw “500 mil max drill size” somewhere, but no mention of metric drills.
Thanks!
It depends on the PCB supplier, most of them use “finished” hole sizes so you don’t need to bother about plating. Olimex is one that doesn’t and you need to allow for plating, which is annoying.
Manufacturers have maximum holes sizes that can be drilled, above that they are routed and there will be an additional cost. Some have preferred drill sizes and charge extra for others.
You need to read a particular supplier’s requirements carefully.
Leon
Sorry, I didn’t specify that I was asking about BatchPCB.
I also read the GoldPhoenix tech specs since BatchPCB uses them. They mention metric drill sizes, max 6.7mm, min 0.1mm, finished hole dia min 0.075. That finished hole dia is what made me wonder about post-plating sizes (not that 0.025mm makes much difference).
Thanks
Rudforce:
I’m curious what I have to do (if anything) to end up with a specific hole size.
Depends upon the fab house that makes your board.
With few exceptions, the drill hole diameter in the PCB
design is the hole diameter after plating.
BatchPCB (GP in China) will bump your drills up
to get the desired final size after plating. Olimex
(in EU) will not.
Rudforce:
Also, is there a list somewhere of available drill sizes?
No. Fabs may use different drill racks to
stream line their process, but most will use the
drills that yield your desired finished hole size.
Metric and “English” (Imperial) sizes are by
conversion.
Unless you have a special case, the only issue is
if the holes are too small for the components to fit.
Oversize holes are easily filled with solder.
Parts that require mechanical locking (or are to be
inverted for soldering) usually have locks to keep
the parts seated. Wave soldering may require that
glue is used on SMT parts that are inverted for
soldering.
Drill sizes you submit to BatchPCB are finished (plated) hole sizes. All holes are plated, so don’t put a hole between two nets. Extra large holes are routed out, but do not cost extra through BatchPCB.
Batchy:
Extra large holes are routed out, but do not cost extra through BatchPCB.
Kewl! And we’re been told we can’t have
internal routes? Does this mean we can have
circular internal routes now? How big?
For the past five years I’ve been making PCBs with ExpressPCB. Now Eagle is flooding me with choices I don’t need or care to make. Stuff the fab house should be dealing with, not me.
for BatchPCB
plated through holes and vias;
I don’t care how big the drill bit needs to be or how thick the via walls are, as long as the component pin goes into the hole without to much slop at the end of the day. Especial when I’m not told the tolerance/default thickness of the plated threw hole walls by the fab-house.
example,
Vishy 561R10TCCQ50, 50pf 1kv disc capacitor has a 0.025 inch lead diameter.
29mill ID should do the trick. Eagle refers to it as drill size I think, and what am I supposed to put in the other hundred boxes in the custom pad window in eagle? Diameter (auto/0.01/etc), Outer layer diam, Drill, Layer :? do I just pick random numbers? what drill size will give me a 29mill ID plated through hole (32? I can’t just pick auto for this one)?
For Eagle
None of the components in my hand are in the library. The process of placing two plated threw holes and a silkscreen outline is insanely over complicated, considering there just caps and inductors.
I already have a schematic of this thing. And I don’t care to Need to have a linked schematic file for a simple three component Low-Pass-filter.
The snap-to spacing cant be smaller then the displayed-dot-ruler spacing!?
I would much prefer to make the ground plains my self, then be forced to use a poured-filled-plane. I can’t draw a trace without it being in some schematic somewhere, same with ground plain RF/thermal vias!? If I want to redraw a trace, I need to delete it from the schematic first and put it back in… What gives!?
thanks smackandy at youtube and SparkFun for getting me this far.
where is the ripping out my hair Emoticon… lol
maybe you should stick to expresspcb.
I think you are fighting eagle too much. you will have to change the way you think about PCBs, though. expressPCB is overly simplistic in my opinion. eagle gives you a lot of power that doesn’t exist in expresspcb. clearly, you need to use one of the many eagle tutorials if you are going to continue with it.
Library parts: make your own. it’s not that hard. there are tutorials on the lib sw.
the reason why you want a schematic is if you make changes you can reflect it in the PCB easily.
instead of deleting the trace, use “ripup” to convert it back to an airwire.
ground planes are just polygons named “gnd”.
good luck.
Philba:
maybe you should stick to expresspcb.
believe me, I wish I could make my little RF filters in Express, and send the .pcb files to batchPCB for production. lol. I only need one of each PCB, not three or four…
Philba:
I think you are fighting eagle too much. you will have to change the way you think about PCBs, though. expressPCB is overly simplistic in my opinion. eagle gives you a lot of power that doesn’t exist in expresspcb.
clearly, and all I care about is component placement and where the copper is on the PCB… lol
After the correct components get created. just kinda stumped.
Philba:
clearly, you need to use one of the many eagle tutorials if you are going to continue with it.
there already. I’m not diving right into 8.4GHz LNB’s. these are simple 47k-ohm 133kHz low pass audio RFI filters. Much smaller then 3.8"x2.5" ExpressPCB smallest size.
Philba:
Library parts: make your own. it’s not that hard. there are tutorials on the lib sw.
got some, need to convert dril-size into finished ID(Internal-Diamater) for the toroid inductors and caps through holes. I cant do SMT on my kitchen counter lol.
I imported/installed/whatever the batchPCB rule files, and the default threw hole lists/pull-down-menu didn’t change/update to what BachPCB can do :?. so I need to do custom ones, 24 is to small, and 32 is to big for a 25mil pin I think.
Philba:
the reason why you want a schematic is if you make changes you can reflect it in the PCB easily.
there is something to look into, can TINA-TI/TiSpice/ELSIE export Eagle schems?
Philba:
instead of deleting the trace, use “ripup” to convert it back to an airwire.ground planes are just polygons named “gnd”.
good luck.
just watched Smackandy do that on youtube last night. have yet to see if I can do neat little arks and “wires” and not have the plane shy away from them to form neet edges and corners in the gnd-plane.
am I reading every one else correct.
I set the drill-size to what I want the finished-ID to be, and just never get over what I’m seeing on the screen is NOT what I will get. If so, this is going to make clearance between ground plane edge, and via edge nearly impossible to manage without further information. how close can the inner edge of a via get to the edge of a plane, without it jetting out from production, and not on the screen?
just realized, dose this post belong in another sub-category? my apologies if it dose. I had the same Q the original poster had, kinda.
thanks for the feedback, KB1NZG.
I cant do SMT on my kitchen counter lol
Of course not; you shouldn’t solder in the kitchen due to lead contamination. You can, however, do SMT at home. All it takes is a fine point on the soldering iron and some tweezers. I do 0805 and 0603 as well as SOIC/TSSOP/TQFP at my work table all the time.
If you are doing single-sided boards, you can even easily etch them at home.
/mike
thanks n1ist for explaining the joke to death… lol
I just ordered my little Cluster-O-vias that should answer my questions about via clearances with the mismatched Eagle-BatchPCB combo.
I’m am surprised, I expected the microscopic measuring tape to cost allot more then it did. 
good day y’all
KB1NZG