Resources

Drill Requirements

Blowouts:

When two holes are placed next to each other without enough clearance the drill bit can be pulled toward whichever hole was drilled first since there is less material resistance. This wander and potential breaking into the adjacent hole can result in the bit shattering which causes damage to the equipment and boards.

We refer to this situation as a blowout.

To prevent blowouts drilled holes need at minimum 0.006" of clearance from edge to edge. Since we drill holes slightly larger than the intended finish size to accommodate copper being plated into them we recommend a bare minimum of 0.012" of clearance between the intended hole size to avoid delays or manufacturing flaws.

To this end we reserve the right to modify perforation holes.

Blind or Buried Vias:

Currently we do not offer either blind or buried vias through any service besides a custom quote.

Blind vias are vias that are drilled from an outer layer (Top or Bottom) but does not go entirely through the board.

Buried vias are drilled only through some or all of the inner layers but not through either of the outer layers.

Example of NC Drill File:

There are some variations but in general an NC drill file will have a header which may contain some file or project specific information, followed by a definition of the tool sizes used, and finally a list of (X,Y) coordinates for desired drill locations categorized by the tool size to be used.

All NC Excellon drill files should be human readable in any text editor and will appear similar to the example below.

M48
T01C0.020 
T02C0.028 
T03C0.030 
T04C0.032 
T05C0.035 
T06C0.040 
% 
T01 
X01944Y00642 
X01991Y00877 
X01907Y00923 
X01537Y01095 
X01622Y01357 
X01752Y01391 
X01668Y01504 
X01498Y01498