No soldermask on via

Archive BatchPCB
1

There are two kinds of plated holes in 2 sided PCB. a) The vias, whose whole purpose is to connect wires form one side of the board to the other side. b) Proper pads in which we need to solder DIP/SIP connectors. I see that the surface of vias is not covered by the solder mask in the PCB’s made by batch PCB. Since we do not need to solder anything to is shouldn’t it be covered with solder mask to prevent accidental solder bridge? I hade some other open source boards lying around and I see that in those the vias are covered with solder mask. Only the pads of connectors are exposed.

Thanks

2

If the vias are soo close to other pins that you risk bridging, I don’t think “tenting” is possible because of the resolution of the silkscreening process. You’d have to have designed the board with a parameter specifying the clearance you need between vias and pads.

Check this thread: https://forum.sparkfun.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=33741