Pjdd
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I've been designing and making PCBs for well over 50 years but have outsourced only a few for production. Those few were before it became standard practice to send designs as Gerber files. I have what may be a silly question:
When ordering a PCB, is it OK to specify the same size for aperture and pad for unused through-hole pins that don't need to be soldered? That is, there won't be any copper left around the hole after drilling. Any trace left won't be a problem. The object is to maximize clearance for tracks running between the unused pins.
The pads are there only as placeholders to provide coordinates for drilling. I just want to be sure that it won't confuse a human checking the design prior to processing it.
For example, I'm designing something that uses only half of the pins coming from an off-the-shelf module mounted on the main board. Here's an illustration:
When ordering a PCB, is it OK to specify the same size for aperture and pad for unused through-hole pins that don't need to be soldered? That is, there won't be any copper left around the hole after drilling. Any trace left won't be a problem. The object is to maximize clearance for tracks running between the unused pins.
The pads are there only as placeholders to provide coordinates for drilling. I just want to be sure that it won't confuse a human checking the design prior to processing it.
For example, I'm designing something that uses only half of the pins coming from an off-the-shelf module mounted on the main board. Here's an illustration: