Hi, when I export a board with through hole components the pads with tracks have the holes covered by the track.
Is there a setting to clear the holes?
Hi,
What kind of export are you talking about? And what’s your intended use-case which requires to clear the holes?
Thanks for the quick reply.
I export the board from File/ExportExport Pdf and choose Cu bottom layer with holes selected and get all disconnected pads with holes clear but tracked holes covered.
I make my own boards and rely on the holes being visible to center the drill press as I have done with many prvious EDA tools.
LibrePCB is easier to use and I would like to adopt it as my preference.
Ok I see. Actually, the PDF export is not intended for production data export, it’s only for documentation purpose since it just exports the same data as rendered on screen. Having holes filled with traces is just one consequence of that, maybe there are also other potential problems.
Thus the only reliable way of generating production data is the Gerber export. As far as I remember, there are tools available to post-process Gerber files for producing PCBs at home (e.g. adding holes to each THT copper pad and exporting to PDF).
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I would suggest to use the gerber output files to produce your transparency. For example gerbv does this. https://gerbv.github.io/
Here you are able to change the order of the objects (for example holes on top and painted in “white”).
Edit: I was a bit late… ubruhin also replied
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Thanks, I figured out how to do it from your suggestion of using gerber and sasmus use of gerbv to change the order and put the drill gbr at the top and change the colors to suit.
I can now get a printout that can be used in toner transfer process with the pad holes clealy visible.
Even with the 2 step process it seems easier to do single sided boards with jumpers using LibrePCB than Kicad.
Thanks for your help, much appreciated.
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