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  3. Adding drill holes

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Adding drill holes

Mattski
Mattski over 17 years ago

I want to add a bunch of drill holes as a way to perforate a board between sections where it will be cut.  I am trying to figure out how to do so.

 The padstack designer doesn't let me save a padstack which is only a drill hole with no pads.  

 I  could draw a bunch of circles in the BoardGeometry->Ncroute_path layer, but I want it to be clear these holes to be routed, not drilled.

 What is the proper way to go about this?

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  • redwire
    redwire over 17 years ago

     Your post is a bit confusing -- you want "drill" holes but you want to make it clear that these are to be "routed" not drilled.  So which is it?

    To do the drill hole method (aka "mouse bites") - - build a padstack with tiny pads such as 10 mil pads and 40 mil non-plated drill.  Antipad per fabricator spec.  Works great.


    If you want a route cutout then add it to board geometry and dimension it on your fab drawing with a note to the fabricator as what to do.

     

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  • Mattski
    Mattski over 17 years ago

     Oops, I mistyped there.  Yes, the holes are to be drilled, not routed.  

     So now that I have a padstack built like that, what is an easy way to add a bunch of them?  I have added a bunch by making a connect line, setting the top layer as both the active and alternate layer, then just go down a line double clicking.  I wish there was a way to just add them without a connect line though, but I can't find one.

     Thanks for you help!

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  • Randy R
    Randy R over 17 years ago

    If these are to be "mouse bites", then you could put the mulitple drill padstacks into a BSM symbol and just place multiple symbols.

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  • redwire
    redwire over 17 years ago

    So like Randy R says...you do it through the creation of a symbol

    Are you familiar with the symbol creation process? I will assume partial knowledge. Ask again if something is not clear.

    1) Create the padstack that we talked about.  Let's call it DRILL40 for purposes of this example.

    2) Create a new Mechanical Symbol (use the wizard) and place the DRILL40 as a PIN (mechanical!) at the origin (0,0).

    3) Update the symbol to include useful layers like route keepouts and additional soldermask

    4) Save the symbol (and create symbol) to your library path -- let's call it MECH40

    5) Back in the Allegro drawing... Place->Manually then pull down "Mechanical Symbols" ensuring that "library" is checked on the Advanced Settings tab.  You should see MECH40 if you saved it correctly.

    6) Now it should be 'floating' on the cursor.  Place it on the board.  Now copy it as much as you want and generate all the drills to your heart's content.

    Like Randy R said, in the mechanical symbol creation process you could have instantiated 4 (or any number) of the DRILL40s as mechanical pins into your symbol and maybe have called it MOUSEBITE.  

     

    Did that help? 

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  • Mattski
    Mattski over 17 years ago

     Thanks Randy and redwire, I learned mainly through help files and never knew what a mechanical symbol was.  This should make it much easier to lay out my mousebites!

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