X-Authentication-Warning: delorie.com: mail set sender to geda-user-bounces using -f X-Recipient: geda-user AT delorie DOT com Subject: Re: [geda-user] [pcb] poll: burried/blind vias vs. pcb and pcb-rnd To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com References: <201601261241 DOT 41826 DOT gheskett AT shentel DOT net> From: "M. J. Everitt (m DOT j DOT everitt AT iee DOT org) [via geda-user AT delorie DOT com]" Message-ID: <56A7B4E1.6090409@iee.org> Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2016 18:03:13 +0000 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/38.2.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <201601261241.41826.gheskett@shentel.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Provags-ID: V03:K0:yOEJMy3kFhxUYNs2ZCOOBR+559qo8VFb0mTpJmS4ZumounZBkPx gXZm3DyW7RGXyFTy/v3fp4q0Es9uXi8CEPCGrHZg/uRQO02Q2sezpNyLPnkYkLe1vuKweWo 6VDIRRhko2JKrE0QHeVq3icMcTQ2qIns15EameCdmiZed/ovITOpuxlPsuIQTaash87h+aS 2+YbPO69uAFIM1ftcKtMg== X-UI-Out-Filterresults: notjunk:1;V01:K0:uyhvx/XEW4Q=:EGMdNuMr+jESjuiQJezrAv nIV3MX0IuqPr6Ar8rLeJGIPPhRZBNvpssYNxS0auKjlIM2PSFSFBbxxlqoPsM6pjloXC7ud5c 51Omabuo/aPUUN+F7sHq/YSRJtnpOjRqC6Kugoit+v6TpeRaon93iYV2lL0j8wPIi1sVdIgY8 gjL1uwEiMfGx44bx0E7/BMud0/NrSyF380CwLYvz2VL5yUoM8OLvidApV9hyTMLN1tGqiW264 oFnwLM8mMfXlfDYIebGGYYn/Q3zy2Q7dhV2mt/619hLisHI1MhYN2Y8u4HSpZlqHmHzLUQfWK 8SCaXV0/Uk1MZAuujoO8LCrrb6rkfj2/er9a5ovQQjfW8UAcIEOFd4pvpoeHKNL4mDfVHOAGz ySvOTlMS6pLQLwrKsPwmk/OEdx7FWgPInMcPpip52GP4K3rsxlBEiabw4yYVMLjk5kX6VzPlE O86dB4LR4xUFuozV6tb/NUZ2QG7ioI/UpCaDpBAKFJzK7IaKesnECBMmR/R9Z9IeNm72ApB1H yhy9qouQ44Y5Fpa4abEtvOKTrR6mmaFxbkLsfuMVbhPMhKcksLQPYAzZ8bLerZknxKvxZsCV6 lYEYE5KW8c8b5Nt/SdPDyYKOu9Es7mF1ysmg03HbUDwNlrBcm/K2vZOBDMreIMer1ajNSz8cA ew3EQC3fQjqU4d3/X3ar9GQw9e2M6cEDR4wg9ZMooQha+YSmcRldb56t4gf0+5BVP8Rh0kBmj VAyR8RGNwE0wXPmZ Reply-To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com Errors-To: nobody AT delorie DOT com X-Mailing-List: geda-user AT delorie DOT com X-Unsubscribes-To: listserv AT delorie DOT com Precedence: bulk On 26/01/16 17:41, Gene Heskett (gheskett AT shentel DOT net) [via geda-user AT delorie DOT com] wrote: > On Tuesday 26 January 2016 09:47:02 Evan Foss (evanfoss AT gmail DOT com) [via > geda-user AT delorie DOT com] wrote: > >> On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 10:21 PM, wrote: >>> Hi all, >>> >>> thanks for everyone who has answered the poll. I also appreciate the >>> effort of those who did not reply with off-topic stuff - the thread >>> did not derail and was kept clean. >>> >>> Results: http://repo.hu/projects/pcb-rnd/devlog/20162601.html >>> >>> TL;DR: there's no strong demand for blind/burried vias on pcb-rnd >>> side. This means I cancel my plans to support them. Mainline pcb may >>> benefit from the feature but the demand there is not as high as I >>> thought or as list traffic may have suggested lately. >> It is possible that all the users who need that functionality never >> adopted this toolchain or left. I doubt it but it is possible. >> >> Still I think you made the right call. >> >>> Regards, >>> >>> Igor2 > If I can throw a toothpick into the water and row a bit, some of us do > all our pcb's as onezies to sixzies, and even with good machine vision > cameras, or time consuming to make and calibrate, fixed reference > pallets to hold the board, we are still limited to 2 sided boards, > multiple layers, other that glueing the finished boards together, are > simply not feasible, so we don't try any of the stuff the board houses > do as just part of the work flow. I can't even do plated thru holes. > > What we need that I didn't find, is a pad menu that isn't tied to a > specific part, but simply a list of pads we can lay down, listed by > ID-OD style in the name of the pad. Dimensions in mils preferred. > > Having a "pad-039-090" to put on the end of a trace where a wire to the > outside world is to be soldered in, and that is easily found in the > menu, would be a real advantage to folks like us. Ditto for parts > placement, the available footprints I found weren't the correct spacing, > nor the correct lead hole sizes. Had that stuff been easily found as > single pads to be laid & snapped to the grid, I could have done that 6 > part project in half the pcb real estate it took. My experience at > laying out pcb's goes back to the 60's at a tv station where we made a > huge percentage of our own gear, so working with tape at 4x scale comes > naturally to me. We also had a DEA etcher that made 5 minutes work out > of making the board once it had been exposed and developed. So PCB to me > is a new trick for a very old dog. I made it work, but there were some > surprises along the way. > > The ability to edit all properties of a laid down and re-selected pad (or > via) may have been there, but the "how" was not obvious. Not helped by > the fact that the help menu's first 3 selections were /dev/null > operations. I still haven't grokked whats missing on these two systems > that cause that failure. Nothing is logged. > > Thanks for reading. > > Cheers, Gene Heskett Whilst I honestly don't want to sound like I'm teaching the proverbial grandmother to suck eggs, after a bit of practice, it's really easy to draw your own symbols and footprints in gEDA, and yes I know from experience that the libraries can often be 'just a bit off'. There are some efforts to provide library import/export from other sources, but for small volumes it really does makes sense to do a bit of your own homework, look up the dimensions, zoom Right in and trace a few bits out. As always, different people like different methods (ymmv), so I'm not saying this will work 100% for you, but I've found it relatively painless myself :).