Interesting Tech Projects
Tenting Vias in DesignSpark PCB
Sometimes it is useful to cover vias with solder mask. Here is how to do it in DesignSpark PCB. First the solder mask with the vias exposed:
1. Choose Design Technology… from the Settings menu
2. Click on the Solder Mask row and then the Edit… button
3. Uncheck the Vias setting and click on OK.
4. Click on OK to close the dialog window.
At this point the solder mask should automatically update to show the vias are now covered. If it doesn’t deselect the layer and reselect it to force a refresh.
| Print article | This entry was posted by Andy on October 10, 2014 at 3:20 pm, and is filed under Computer Aided Design, Electronics. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |
868MHz PCB Antenna
about 6 years ago - 3 comments
I recently had a need to design an antenna on a PCB for LoRa, an 868MHz long range, low power communications protocol. For this project I decided to use an off-the-shelf LoRa module that already contained an RF matching network. The only requirement was a 50 Ohm antenna that would work at the desired frequency.…
Halogen Reflow Oven Using Off-the-Shelf Parts
about 6 years ago - 6 comments
Here is my version of a solder reflow oven for surface mount PCBs. It is a merging of the following two projects, taking advantage of cheap and easy to obtain halogen ovens and off-the-shelf control hardware, avoiding the need to create custom electronics. https://apollo.open-resource.org/mission:resources:picoreflow http://andybrown.me.uk/2014/05/11/awreflow/ The halogen oven part of the build is identical to…
PCB For Raspberry Pi WH1080 Weather Station
about 10 years ago - 33 comments
Previously I wrote about using a Raspberry Pi to receive 433MHz signals from a WH1080 weather station. This is the mess of wiring I came up with: This worked fine until it stopped. I probably didn’t crimp a wire properly and too many knocks resulted in unreliable operation. To solve this I designed a PCB…
Comments are closed.
about 6 years ago
This is exactly what I’m looking for. Great! Thank you.
about 6 years ago
But it seems that this setting has no effect to the Manufacturing Plots (Gerber). Vias are uncovered. (DS PCB 8.0) 🙁
about 6 years ago
Perhaps send a bug report to RS? I’ve now switched to KiCAD – I think it’s significantly better than DesignSpark, as well as being free.
about 6 years ago
Very many thanks for this tip.
Works just fine on DS PCB 8.1