I know this might be my mistake, but I had BatchPCB make up a set of boards for me that were based on an already uploaded design (2377). The boards look great, but the problem is that the entire bottom side of the board is covered by solder mask! I don’t know how I could have forseen this, since I used an already uploaded design. Is this a typical problem, or is there a problem with the manufacturing process (unlikely, but I thought I’d bring it up), or (more likely) have I just learned an important lesson about using uploaded designs? Is there a way I could have caught this before committing to buy the uploaded design?
Having the solder mask “tent over” the vias is something that is selectable by the board designer (for Eagle it’s the DRC->Masks->Limit parameter that needs to be changed relative to the via sizes).
If you’re buying an existing design (btw, design id 2377 gives nothing, for me), looking at the board may not give you that info because it depends in what order they display multiple overlapping layers. Some programs or pcb viewers who have access to all the layers will display a kaleidoscope of merged colors representing the layers, or you can selectively enabled diff layers and see whats going on.
For BatchPCB, a possible solution would be to allow buyers the capability of accessing the layers in the same way as an uploader would. Of course you’d have to be able to zoom-in to get a better view at, in your case, the silkscreen layers (top and bottom) would be of interest.
I was told by one of the guys at Support@BatchPCB.com that the .gbs file was completely missing from the set of Gerbers. Apparently the designs are supposed to be reviewable; he said he would submit a ticket to IT to make the designs reviewable. It sure would have helped out in my case. Oh, and I guess they’ve changed the numbering scheme - now the design I requested a copy of is labelled 77689.