Another MAJOR manufacturing concern, that seems to keep being overlooked, is the much greater propensity for drill bit breakage when drilling through all those layers of Cu.! ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Re: Non-Functional PadMy View-- non-functional pads Author: [log in to unmask] at INTERNET Date: 10/18/95 11:40 AM > > > > The advantages of keeping this pad far out-weigh the minor advantage of > > deleteing this from your artwork. > (see some of the other responces good stuff) > What might those advantages be? I've heard of an old-wives-tale of Z-axis control and pad lifting, but that is a false rumor, they don't cotrol anything of the sort. There's also the theory of thermal support for the hole barrel during solder/desolder.....however there's not enough metal with nonfunctional holes to amount to much thermal help. Then there's manufacturing concerns...... By removing the nonfunctional pad you are not just doing cosmetic work. In fact your are reducing the POTENTIAL of remaining copper during etching, which could be overlooked at layer inspection and cause needless shorting to planes. You are also eliminating needless rejects because the anualar ring of the non-functional pads doesn't meet spec.