Printed Circuit Boards - Drill before or after etching...?

After.

Try making the annulus around the hole wider. The default footprint may be fine for a manufactured board but a wider one has more adhesive holding it in place. Also, if you can, make your mask with "holes for the holes" so that most (all?) of the drilling is just in the board material and not the pad. Finally, it may be time for a new drill bit, one that's sharp enough to cut with minimal tearing/drag.

Something is wrong if you're having this issue.

Could be bad drill bits or, if your problem is with the underside of the board doing this? If so then put the board on a drilling board, piece of wood etc..

Jamie

I only had an issue with three pads - two were stand-alone, with no traces connecting them... while the third had a trace on it.

Perhaps my drill bit was too large...? I was using a size that fit the holes of a manufactured prototyping board, so perhaps I should try a smaller bit. (The bit was brand-new, so sharpness shouldn't have been a factor...)

"Len Lekx" schreef in bericht news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

In my experience the standard pads in PCB-software are dimensioned for "professional" manufactured, doublesided boards with inside metalized holes. For my singlesided prototype boards I use to make the pads at least 1.4mm. More often I make them 1.6mm. I set the drill width to 0,8mm and drill the all the holes after etching. When a 0.8mm hole is too small I drill it once more using a 0.9mm up to a 1.5mm drill depending on the dimension required.

petrus bitbyter

The only time I had problems with circuit board was really cheap board (I can't remember what it was, brown and cracked really easy) in the early seventies. Phenolic board it was.

I've never had problems drilling home made boards after they've been etched, once I stopped using that junk board. There have been times when I've had pads come off because I was changing components and it couldn't live up to the reheating, but that's a different issue completely.

I recall some articles about making circuit boards did say to drill first, but I also seem to recall that was more a layout issue, make sure you have the holes in the right place, then add the resist.

If the pads are too small compared to the drill bit (or the drill bit too large compared to the pad) there likely will be an issue.

Michael

I think Petrus nailed the issue, too many people so single sided artwork with PTH design rules, pads are way too small, tracks too thin, and they look terrible.

Home made boards need to be chunky, your etchant will last longer too.

Grant.

Drill speed too slow?

-- Boris