At 01:48 PM 5/4/97 -0500, you wrote:
>>Use apcircuits at
>
>>E-Mail: staff@apcircuits.com
>>WEB Page: http://www.apcircuits.com
>
>I just finished bringing up some boards I had done by apcircutis and I was
>VERY dissatified with the results.  Over 60% of my vias were not thru
>connected and about 20-30% of my pads as well.  My jumper per inch ratio for
>this board is very high and it was very, very frustating.
>
>In defense of ap however I don't know if it was something that I did wrong
>with my board specifications that caused it or if it was just apcircuits
>quality.  Has any one else experienced this?
>
>One thing that really chapped me was that I had a part that the pad size and
>the hole size  were equal and ended up a big via from my power plane to my
>ground plane.   I would have thought that they would have caught such a
>glaring error when doing the film.
>
>--
>Richard A. Smith                   Always remember to pillage
>Contract Monkey &               BEFORE you burn.
>Head Pryo Technician
>ras2@tant.com
>

   Did you leave enough annular pad width around the holes (10 mil minimum)?
Failing to do that can cause damage to the pads when the holes are drilled.
   We have done a number of fairly complicated PCBs with AP Circuits and
have never had a problem -- their boards have always been high quality. We
have even used them for small production runs when time was short.
   I don't think it's feasible for APC to check every pad on a PCB and guess
what the designer had in mind. You can download GC Prevue from their web
site and use it to check the Gerber files for errors yourself before you
send them.