Hi All,

 I'm trying to better understand the process of drilling holes in a PCB
and the files that are used by the board fabricators to do this. I am a
PCB designer and presently send gerber files (fabrication gerber
included) and a drill file (excellon format) to my board house for boards
to be made. The fabrication drawing contains a drill table with symbols
that represent each hole size and whether or not it is a plated or
non-plated hole. I never allowed a plated and non-plated hole to be the
same size in any of my designs because my CAD tools couldn't recognize
that a plated and non-plated hole could be the same size and thus
couldn't generate 2 different symbols for each. Well now my CAD vendor
has provided me with the ability of tagging my padstacks as either a
plated or non-plated hole so that I can generate a different drill symbol
for my fab drawings. And I can also generate different drill files that
can either include all hole styles, only plated holes or only non-plated
holes which I thought would help my board fabricator out by not having to
separate out the plated from the non-plated hole coordinates in the drill
file. But when I called him to see if he could make better use of 2 drill
files (plated and non-plated), he said he only wants the 1 file that
contains both the plated and non-plated hole locations. Wouldn't it be
better to have the 2 files? What don't I know? I would greatly appreciate
all feedback from any designers or board fabricators.

Regards,

Bob Walker
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