It always seems impossible to get any information When dealing with PCB houses. When asked for specs, they usually reply “If you send us some plans we can advise you”. This is epically dumb, then I have to find out by trial and error, where a whole iteration potentially takes a whole pcb design/route procedure. If I knew what made things easier/what the limits are then it would make both my life and theirs easier.
Whilst writing a library for generating pcb footprints(more soon), I stumbled on this document. It appears to be some sort of spec and appears to be superseded by IPC-7351 but it does at least provide some information about things to consider like fiducials, pick and place, solder mask clearances. Even if these things are wrong/old, the presence of these considerations is more than anyone seems to be willing to tell.
Why didn’t they teach this kind of stuff at university…..that might have been useful!
