[PEDA] Octagonal Pads

[Dan Enslen]

Good Afternoon All,
	I am not in the same position here as most, and I have absolutely no
experience with Gerber readers, but it seems to me that it would be quite
easy these days to make a prototype run to check out any radically new or
questionable PCB structures. Granted, the monetary resources may prohibit
this in a lot of cases. Just my 2 cents worth. 

Dan Enslen

The only reason time exists is so
everything doesn't happen all at once.

-----Original Message-----
From: PEDA-bounces at techservinc.com [mailto:PEDA-bounces at techservinc.com] On
Behalf Of Harry Selfridge
Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 12:23 PM
To: Protel EDA Discussion List
Subject: Re: [PEDA] Octagonal Pads

It has become apparent that, despite all of the presumably 
authoritative talk, nobody engaged in discussion about AD and 
octagonal pads has actually taken a look to see whether or not the 
issue has been resolved.

I couldn't possibly care less about octagonal pads; however, I took a 
few minutes to run exactly the same test on them that I ran on the 
new rounded corner pads.

For the record, it appears that octagonal pads are presented and 
processed properly by AD6.6.  I converted the pads to octagonal on 
the same test layout I used for rounded corner pads (various angles 
of rotation, top and bottom layer surface pads, and thru-hole 
pads).  I produced two sets of Gerber files from that layout - one 
mirrored and one not.  I then read those Gerbers using four different 
CAM tools - CAMTASTIC, CAM350, Pentalogix Viewmaster, and Gerbtool.

All CAM tools read the Gerbers the same way, and all renderings of 
the octagonal pads were correct.  There were no rotational or 
dimensional distortions on any rendering of the pads by the CAM tools 
available to me.

It appears that, like many other REALLY OLD problems, this one has 
been fixed.  Note that this does NOT mean that there isn't a CAM 
program out there somewhere that will improperly process the 
octagonal apertures - I don't have access to every CAM program 
available.  It does mean that apparently Altium has gotten it right 
for some of the more commonly used CAM programs.  I can forward a set 
of Gerbers to anyone who needs to see for themselves.

Instead of old 'whine' pressed from sour grapes, how about moving on 
to more recent vintage?

Harry


 
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