Hi Steve

Sometimes the names we give things make a little sense huh?

Not to anyone who doesn't know the shape of a 'Homeplate' (like us dumb old Europeans) :-)

Ian

Hey Ryan!

    What "homeplate" apertures is, is a opening for passive components that
look just like a baseball homeplate with the pointy end facing in towards the
centroid of the location.

This shape has become popular with the increased use of no-clean solderpastes.
What this shape does is to reduce the paste deposited along the inside areas
of the pads towards the center of the location where it winds up beneath the
body of the capacitor or resistor placed there.

Being that the body is unsolderable, what usually happens is that the paste
that is trapped there will coalecse together at liquidous and form a little
ball that squeezes out to the side of the part and remain there because of the
flux residue that it's coated with.

It's not been an issue in a water soluble environment because in 99.9% of the
cases it gets washed away when the board is cleaned, but in a no clean
environment it stays there...and they're usually big enough to cause a short
between fine pitch leads if it were to ever work loose from the flux residue.

The homeplate shape has been found one of the best shapes to use that will
reduce the solder paste deposited where it creates the squeeze balls, and
still gives a good area for the parts to be placed and still have enough tack
from the paste to keep them in place until reflow.

Sometimes the names we give things make a little sense huh?

-Steve Gregory-

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Regards
Ian Squires
Senior Production Engineer
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