VIAs and Pads

[beakie]

Why would eagle make pads act as vias? Surely the pad is only soldered on one side...???

 

[cobra1]

From my limited experience with eagle i have found this.

Pads are associated only with components, if its not in the schematic it cant be in the pcb.

If you add your own pads afterwards they are seen as vias as you are doing your own tracing.

Not sure if you can make a pad/via be seen as a pad but this is just my own experience.

 

[3v0]

The pads for SMD parts are only on the layer where the part is soldered.

With through hole parts the pad is on both sides because this lets you use the pad as if it were a via. This is very common. If you are doing a single sided PCB just ignore the top layer.

 

[Boncuk]

For practical work vias and pads have the same function.

Vias are no components (devices) while pads are.

Ripping up a trace containing vias they will disappear if the entire trace is ripped up. Pads will still be connected via airwires after a complete ripup.

As already said pads must be part of the schematic. They are not automatically generated.

Vias are automatically generated when switching between layers while routing a trace.

Boncuk

 

[tvtech]

Eagle can be confusing.

You obviously have the free version installed on your Comp???

Go START. ALL PROGRAMS. EAGLE. TUTORIAL.

Read and learn. Confused me too initially.

Read through. Eagle compared to other PCB CAD programs is relatively easy to understand. Manual is still crappy though. They must work on certain areas like explanation of Gerber and Excellon file creation and so forth. Eagle does it all....but the Manual is weak.

Cheers