Eric Christison asked:


>For the benefit of your non US cousins. Could you tell us what a homeplate is
>and what shape it is.

in response to this reply about the modification of stencil apertures on
rectangular component pads:

>>      I an doing the "homeplate" design for all chips,
>>      (0603, 0805, 1206, 1210) and having great success, I find I do not
>>      need to do this with tant type caps. on all other parts I just reduce
>>      the apertures. I currently use Syscon Microscreen for stencils and
>>      running Alpha UP78 no-clean in an air environment.

"homeplate" etymology is from the American game of baseball. The homeplate
is an object shaped like this

     /\
    /  \
   |    |
   |    |
   ------

but IMHO, the "homeplate" shape is not as effective as this form:

   |\/|
   |  |
   ----

In either case, the idea is to reduce the volume of paste which would be
displaced when the rectangular component is placed on the pads.

We use an angle of 60 degrees for the "V" cut, the height of the Isosceles
triangle formed by the solder-free area is about 30% of the base.


cheers (or cheerio in your case, which is breakfast over here)









Jerry Cupples
Interphase Corporation
Dallas, TX USA
http://www.iphase.com

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