Like Herbert, I almost always print out a 1:1 scale artwork of the component side(s) of the board and physically lay unfamiliar parts on the paper and view the alignment under magnification. Most CAD software can do this (produce exact scale output) natively but even if it cannot, you can always do it from the Gerber files. I find that most printers are fairly accurate. They may be off by, say, 1 mm over the length of an 8 inch long board, which is negligible over the scale of a single surface mount IC. Sean On Thu, Jul 14, 2011 at 9:17 PM, Herbert Graf wrote: > On Thu, 2011-07-14 at 19:00 -0600, Dwayne Reid wrote: >> This particular incident wasn't my mistake but it easily could have >> been - I'm sorta used to a package name (eg SOIC) having a specified >> lead pitch and I might have decided to skip my usual "check twice" >> policy. =A0As it was, I did have a good look at the board layout before >> it was sent out and it *NEVER* occurred to me that the PIC footprint >> might be wrong. > > FWIW I sometimes go so far as to make scale models of my board and > "unfamiliar" parts to ensure parts are what I expect them to be... > > that said, the days of assuming pitch are long over. A friend of mine a > few years ago made a board that we ALL checked. Only after it came back > did we realize that the JTAG header on the board was 2.54mm pitch, and > the JTAG programming cable was 2mm pitch... we've had to use the flying > lead adapter ever since. > > TTYL > > -- > http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive > View/change your membership options at > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist > --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .