SMD pads ovelapping non-pad copper

[notameadow]

Hello,

I have a following footprint:

The top part is just a wire/line on copper layer, so in manufacturing it works well. You can see it better here:

So effectively a pad is placed over a line. The goal here is to have an exposed trace that is routable, and I wanted to avoid having to do it directly in layout for many reasons - so I just made a part.

Now this obviously makes Eagle not happy:

and it makes sense, as there clearly is an overlap. My question: is there a better way to have an exposed copper connected to a pad in footprint editor that would not trigger overlap errors?

I know I can change DRCs, but they are there for a good reason. I know I can just ignore the errors (which is not as I need to keep track of the number to make sure there isn’t a ‘real’ overlap somewhere else) but I just want to make sure that I’m not missing some feature of the footprint editor.

Thanks.

[rachaelATWH4 · Accepted solution]

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@notameadow wrote:

My question: is there a better way to have an exposed copper connected to a pad in footprint editor that would not trigger overlap errors?

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You would be better to do the additional copper as a polygon which extends far enough into the pad to surround the centre of the pad. This is called a custom pad shape in EAGLE. Doing so will mean that you don't get the DRC errors.

Best Regards,

Rachael

[notameadow]

That worked, thanks! Although I was hoping I could get away with replacing just the last part with a polygon (well, a polygon that backtracks on itself so it’s a line) but now the polygon overlaps with a line further up (and I have a lot of them).

But that is only because I did wrong to start with 🙂 Thanks again.