--- In kicad-users@..., "prenato_2000" <prenato_2000@...> wrote:
Here's the latest I heard from the pcb house:
"Since you have indicated that four holes are screw holes ,then the
solder mask opening is necessity .because if no solder mask opening
,the hole wall will be covered with solder .so we kindly propose you
could update the gerber file with 4 solder mask opening adding ."
I'm not sure if some information might have been lost in translation.
The only issue I can think of is this: Usually the boards are drilled before solder mask is applied. So if there are no openings in the mask, the mounting holes would be blocked by the mask.
Also we don't know (yet) if you have openings of the solder mask on BOTH layers. If just one layer is open, the hole will indeed fill up with solder when they do HASL.
Maybe that is the problem.
So you should check if you have the proper openings for the drill hole on both mask layers (top and bottom).
When creating the gerber files, make sure to create top and bottom solder mask layers + check if they 'open the hole' all the way. Maybe there is something wrong with the 1pin footprint of your kicad release. Can't be sure, but some footprints have bugs.
