On Sun, Mar 25, 2012 at 12:56 PM, Matt Bennett wro= te: > I'm sitting here working on a board, and I can't figure out something- it > seems like tradition that you don't put your soldermask over a via- that'= s > the default in Eagle* and how it has worked out in most layouts I've done= .. > Is there good reason for this with modern PCB fab equipment? I realize > that an un-masked via makes for an easy rework/test point. =A0I can also = see > that I may not want to put mask over a hole (where there isn't board to > cover), but the silkscreen also seems to be left off where there isn't > mask, and I want to make sure I don't mess with my silkscreen (if I need > to get at the via, I'd rather scrape off the mask/silkscreen). I can't offer more than anecdotal evidence on this, but it's something I thought about a bit last year. I used to get PCBs done with no soldermask as I was using a proto house and never made more than a couple of each board. I finally switched to a production house and suddenly there were new things to consider! While I can't say if it's "better" to do it one way or another, I think esthetically it's a bit more pleasing to my eye to have the via tented. They seem to do it on all sorts of complex computer PCBs (motherboards, etc), so that's a vote in its favour. In addition, the guys at Sparkfun recommend in their PCB tutorial. Josh --=20 A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 -Douglas Adams --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .