Hi,
My regular cad guy is out sick, so I'm doing a little test board myself. I'm an occasional PADS user.
Everything is going OK, except that I want to do a topside copper pour that floods over all the same-net surface-mount pads, without thermals. I know there's an obsure path to do this - I've seen him do it - but I can't find it. Flooding over vias is no problem, but there is some other trick to flooding the pads. Anybody know what it is?
This is PCB v 5.0.
Thanks,
John
John, It is in your general peferences settings (design, routing or something like that.). It is on some tab that only slightly makes sense in terms of polygon connection types. Look for two groups of settings side by side in the middle of the tab screen. Like two side-side columns. That sets the connection types, it can set the thermal relief style (+ or X spokes, 2 or 4 spokes) and I believe also allow setting no thermal relief or flooding over your pads.
The better question is are you sure you want to flood over your pads? Are you going to be able to solder them sufficiently after flooding over them. It's your board but direct floods over pads take a lot of heat to properly solder.
-- Sincerely, Brad Velander. "John Larkin" wrote in message news:ggqit31jtsoip1iigrj34qi330dcc9omvh@4ax.com... > Hi, > > My regular cad guy is out sick, so I\'m doing a little test board > myself. I\'m an occasional PADS user. > > Everything is going OK, except that I want to do a topside copper pour > that floods over all the same-net surface-mount pads, without > thermals. I know there\'s an obsure path to do this - I\'ve seen him do > it - but I can\'t find it. Flooding over vias is no problem, but there > is some other trick to flooding the pads. Anybody know what it is? > > This is PCB v 5.0. > > Thanks, > > John > >
OK, we finally got it to work. It's a little trickier than you suggest.
In Preferences/Thermals/Non-drilled thermals, you have to select each possible pad shape sequentially, and then set "flood over" mode for each shape!
Production boards will be reflowed in an oven, where everything gets hot. But I find that a Metcal can hand-solder almost anything. This is GHz stuff, with really tiny parts, and the spokes just don't make sense.
Thanks.
John
Even with the smaller tips?
I have an MX-500, and while the larger (say, 1/8" and bigger) tips will solder just about anything, the tiny ones just don't seem to have enough thermal conductance to let you solder down, e.g., an 0402 to a ground plane.
Yeah that sorta sounds right John.
I never said it was very simple, nor optimal, I just told you where it was. If my memory severes me correctly, there was a flood over radio type button below each column, or possibly just one below both columns. Does that not just force a flood over of all pads regardless of shape? I can recall doing the different pad shape thing for setting different spoke patterns but I thought the flood over was more global and nto set by each pad shape. Oh well it has been a while since I used PADs seriously.
-- Sincerely, Brad Velander.
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