¿ªÔÆÌåÓý

ctrl + shift + ? for shortcuts
© 2025 Groups.io
  1. Kicad-Users
  2. Topics

Mounting holes missing solder mask opening

 

Hi

I'm new to pcb making and tried nding my first Kicad design to iteadstudios. They are reporting an issue with the mounting holes in my Gerbers:

"there are 4 drill size 3.0 mm that are missing solder mask opening ,see the picture .we kindly propose you could update the gerber file ."

I used the 1PIN module in the pcb design tool to add these holes. This is a two layer pcb and i placed this module in ecah of the four corners. Anyone has suggestion on what I might have done wrong and how to correct it?

Many thanks in advance,

Paulo
 

"there are 4 drill size 3.0 mm that are missing solder mask opening ,see the picture .we kindly propose you could update the gerber file ."

I used the 1PIN module in the pcb design tool to add these holes.
I haven't had problems with "1pin" before. Did you check the gerber files with a gerber viewer? (gerbv is quite good). Can you post them, or at least the 'picture'?
 

--- In kicad-users@..., "prenato_2000" <prenato_2000@...> wrote:

Hi Robert,
Thanks a lot for your feedback. Here's an image. The layer in blue are
the drill holes where the four large ones in the four corners are the
1PIn screw holes. The green color is the solder mask in the bottom
layer. I have 5 SMD capacitors there and these are the mask opening for
those (I suppose). Given that the 1PIN are just screw holes, I'm
wondering why they would need a solder mask opening for these holes? I'm
probably missing something basic here since I'm new at this.
Thanks in advance,P

--- In kicad-users@..., "robert" <madworm_de.yahoo@>
wrote:

"there are 4 drill size 3.0 mm that are missing solder mask opening
,see the picture .we kindly propose you could update the gerber file ."

I used the 1PIN module in the pcb design tool to add these holes.
I haven't had problems with "1pin" before. Did you check the gerber
files with a gerber viewer? (gerbv is quite good). Can you post them, or
at least the 'picture'?

Hello Renato,
By default, KiCad's through-hole pads don't have solder paste layers checked (I don't know why, and that's one of the reasons I never use modules from the standard libraries). Is it possible that this is a case of terminology, i.e., confusion between "solder paste mask" (the one through which solder paste goes) and "solder mask" (the one that stops solder)?
Best regards,
Esteban
 

I forgot to tell you that I can't see the image (when I click your message on Yahoo's page a dialog asking user name and password appears).

--- In kicad-users@..., "prenato_2000" <prenato_2000@...> wrote:

Hi Robert,
Thanks a lot for your feedback. Here's an image. The layer in blue are
the drill holes where the four large ones in the four corners are the
1PIn screw holes. The green color is the solder mask in the bottom
layer. I have 5 SMD capacitors there and these are the mask opening for
those (I suppose). Given that the 1PIN are just screw holes, I'm
wondering why they would need a solder mask opening for these holes? I'm
probably missing something basic here since I'm new at this.
Thanks in advance,P

--- In kicad-users@..., "robert" <madworm_de.yahoo@>
wrote:

"there are 4 drill size 3.0 mm that are missing solder mask opening
,see the picture .we kindly propose you could update the gerber file ."

I used the 1PIN module in the pcb design tool to add these holes.
I haven't had problems with "1pin" before. Did you check the gerber
files with a gerber viewer? (gerbv is quite good). Can you post them, or
at least the 'picture'?
 

Hi Esteban, Robert,

Sorry for the image issue. Here it is what I intended to post. Hopefully will show now:

layoutIssue

http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/16027698/sn/1220508062/name/layoutIssue.jpg

I placed it under Photos -> Kicad_problems

The layer in blue contains the drill holes where the four large ones ?in the four corners are the 1PIn screw holes. The green color is the solder mask in the bottom layer. I have 5 SMD capacitors there and these are the mask opening for those (I suppose).?
Given that the 1PIN are just screw holes, I'm wondering why they would need a solder mask opening for these holes? I'm probably missing something basic here since I'm new at this.

Thanks in advance,
P

--- In kicad-users@..., "e_e_lucchesi" wrote:
>
> I forgot to tell you that I can't see the image (when I click your message on Yahoo's page a dialog asking user name and password appears).
>
> --- In kicad-users@..., "prenato_2000" prenato_2000@ wrote:
> >
> > Hi Robert,
> > Thanks a lot for your feedback. Here's an image. The layer in blue are
> > the drill holes where the four large ones in the four corners are the
> > 1PIn screw holes. The green color is the solder mask in the bottom
> > layer. I have 5 SMD capacitors there and these are the mask opening for
> > those (I suppose). Given that the 1PIN are just screw holes, I'm
> > wondering why they would need a solder mask opening for these holes? I'm
> > probably missing something basic here since I'm new at this.
> > Thanks in advance,P
> >
> > --- In kicad-users@..., "robert"
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > > "there are 4 drill size 3.0 mm that are missing solder mask opening
> > ,see the picture .we kindly propose you could update the gerber file ."
> > > >
> > > > I used the 1PIN module in the pcb design tool to add these holes.
> > >
> > > I haven't had problems with "1pin" before. Did you check the gerber
> > files with a gerber viewer? (gerbv is quite good). Can you post them, or
> > at least the 'picture'?
> > >
> >
>
 

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 what to do here. If anyone has a suggestion I would appreciate it.

Thanks,
P

--- In kicad-users@..., "prenato_2000" <prenato_2000@...> wrote:

Hi Esteban, Robert,
Sorry for the image issue. Here it is what I intended to post. Hopefully
will show now:
[layoutIssue]
http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/16027698/sn/1220508062/name/layoutIssue.jpg
I placed it under Photos -> Kicad_problems
The layer in blue contains the drill holes where the four large ones in
the four corners are the 1PIn screw holes. The green color is the solder
mask in the bottom layer. I have 5 SMD capacitors there and these are
the mask opening for those (I suppose). Given that the 1PIN are just
screw holes, I'm wondering why they would need a solder mask opening for
these holes? I'm probably missing something basic here since I'm new at
this.
Thanks in advance,P--- In kicad-users@..., "e_e_lucchesi"
<e_e_lucchesi@> wrote:

I forgot to tell you that I can't see the image (when I click your
message on Yahoo's page a dialog asking user name and password appears).

--- In kicad-users@..., "prenato_2000" prenato_2000@
wrote:

Hi Robert,
Thanks a lot for your feedback. Here's an image. The layer in blue
are
the drill holes where the four large ones in the four corners are
the
1PIn screw holes. The green color is the solder mask in the bottom
layer. I have 5 SMD capacitors there and these are the mask opening
for
those (I suppose). Given that the 1PIN are just screw holes, I'm
wondering why they would need a solder mask opening for these holes?
I'm
probably missing something basic here since I'm new at this.
Thanks in advance,P

--- In kicad-users@..., "robert" <madworm_de.yahoo@>
wrote:

"there are 4 drill size 3.0 mm that are missing solder mask
opening
,see the picture .we kindly propose you could update the gerber file
."

I used the 1PIN module in the pcb design tool to add these
holes.

I haven't had problems with "1pin" before. Did you check the
gerber
files with a gerber viewer? (gerbv is quite good). Can you post
them, or
at least the 'picture'?
 

--- 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.
Koenraad Lelong
 

On 23-07-12 04:01, 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 what to do here. If anyone has a suggestion I would appreciate it.

Thanks,
P
In the latest official build of Kicad, you have an option to indicate the hole as NPTH : Non-Plated-Though-Hole. Then there are two drill files made, one containing the PTH and one containing the NPTH drills. NPTH's are normally drilled after the PCB is etched/plated, so there can't be any solder in the holes.

HTH,

Koenraad Lelong.
 

Hi Robert, Esteban, Koenraad,

Thanks a lot for all your insights. Your comments led me to what I was doing wrong. Here it is so others don't run into same problem:

As mentioned by Esteban, it was a confusion of solder paste versus solder mask. Itead asks for:

Solder Stop Mask top: pcbname.GTS
Solder Stop Mask Bottom pcbname.GBS

I misinterpreted this as being the SoldP_Front and SoldP_Back in Kicad "plot" layers menu. In reality, I now believe I should have check the Mask_Front and Mask_Back instead as Robert mentioned these are the actual solder "masks".
Typical beginner mistake.I really appreciate the help you all gave me which led me to the issue. This is a really great community!

Thanks,

Paulo

--- In kicad-users@..., Koenraad Lelong <kicad-koen@...> wrote:

On 23-07-12 04:01, 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 what to do here. If anyone has a suggestion I would appreciate it.

Thanks,
P
In the latest official build of Kicad, you have an option to indicate
the hole as NPTH : Non-Plated-Though-Hole. Then there are two drill
files made, one containing the PTH and one containing the NPTH drills.
NPTH's are normally drilled after the PCB is etched/plated, so there
can't be any solder in the holes.

HTH,

Koenraad Lelong.

1 - 9 of 9