Continue to Site

Welcome to our site!

Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

  • Welcome to our site! Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

clip art editing

Status
Not open for further replies.

MrDEB

Well-Known Member
trying to edit a silkscreen graphic for a circuit board but need to have areas with transparent areas so the pcboard shows through the graphic. I keep getting errors that silk screen layer is covering the smd pads.
Any suggestions??
 
The problem is a bit unclear. Can you post a screenshot of the design?
 
Is it a GIF image?
 
Also, what CAD package?
 
using Diptrace. I imported a jpeg onto the circuit board design.
The silkscreen overlays the area where smd leds are mounted. The areas need to be transparent so I can put the leds in the correct locations thus I need to edit or have edited the jpeg with transparent areas. I tried using an inverted jpeg and it helped but it still is no correct.
 
Will Diptrace accept GIFs with transparency?
 
Well now I am really perplexed??
I have a board in front of me that has 1206 smd pads in a silkscreen area that works. I must have had the board made with the errors and failed to re check BUT it works?? Only thing I can figure I did wrong but maybe my wrong move worked??
I converted my graphic to a bmp and cut out the areas needing transparency and still get errors when verifying my board design.
Thinking of just going with my design but have the board house verify that the design will work.
Another crazy idea is create a component pattern with all 20-1206 smd pads as one component??lol
 
Just had a thought, maybe the board is silk screened first then pads are placed?? during manufacture.
 
Just had a thought, maybe the board is silk screened first then pads are placed?? during manufacture.

Ahhh.....no. EEVBlog has a great video showing the board manufacturing process.

The software the fab house uses will delete silkscreen over pads. It's best not to depend on that, but it is part of their process.
 
will search for that video. I recall you visited a board house several years ago.
I emailed David at Elecrow about this subject.
 
I viewed a video about PCB manufacturing, very interesting.
I just might go ahead and have boards made and not worry about the silk screen error in Diptrace.
 
I tested this with Eagle. Created a board with a DIP package and an SMT, half covered by a block of silk screen. I know from previous experience that the silk screen layer will not cover a pad, but I don't know if this was the result of some Eagle did or the fabricator. I ran the CAM file to create the Gerber files and looked at the output.

The first picture includes all the Gerber layers. The green rectangle is the soldermask area on the top of the board.

Gerber all.jpg


The second layer shows only the soldermask rectangle. Eagle does nothing to account for the areas where the silkscreen overlaps mounting pads.

Gerber Silk.jpg


Therefore, the fabricator's software handles the overlaps. I think your Dipstrace error isn't so much as error as a warning that your silkscreen layer is going to have holes in it.

One other note. ALL of my Gerber layers include the board outline and I include a readme file stating that. It ensures that these is no doubt about the board edges.
 
Thanks Jon for the info
I received an email from Elecrow and David mentioned that IF there is an issue they will contact me.
I looked at the board on my desk and the silk screen does not cover the pad so you are right that the warning indicates a hole in the silk screen. Going to re-fine my board design and send it off and see what transpires. Have been using a gerber file viewer that appears to be good but?
https://circuitpeople.com/
Are there better ones or ??
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest threads

New Articles From Microcontroller Tips

Back
Top