Here at Caterpillar we are starting to do some designs that are dense enough that the silkscreen gets in the way. We would like to have some method of identifying component polarity even without a silkscreen and without a drawing, and about the only thing we can think of is to lengthen the "pin one" pad for ICs, and cut the corners off the anode or positive side of diodes and caps. What worries me is the shaved corners. After preaching to everyone the value of having some kind of standard land patterns, I'm now advocating six sided geometries? but anyway, Have any of you seen soldering or reliability problems by cutting the corners off a pad? Is there a "trimming ratio" I should maintain? Any other ideas? Jack --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------