When to use oval and when to use round pads?

[Michael Noone]

Hi - I've been doing a good deal of PCB drawing with Eagle over the last
couple of days - and I've noticed something that I think is kind of odd.
While most components use round pads, some use oval shaped pads. For
example - all dual inline components that I've looked at in Eagle use oval
pads. So initially I was thinking that they were a way to keep pads
distanced but also leave plenty of space to solder - but then I noticed
some other components with oval pads - like relays whose pins were very
widely spaced. So - is there an advantage of one pad style over the other
that I'm just not thinking of? Thanks!

-Michael J. Noone

 

[Pooh Bear]

Michael Noone wrote:

Hi - I've been doing a good deal of PCB drawing with Eagle over the last
couple of days - and I've noticed something that I think is kind of odd.
While most components use round pads, some use oval shaped pads. For
example - all dual inline components that I've looked at in Eagle use oval
pads. So initially I was thinking that they were a way to keep pads
distanced but also leave plenty of space to solder - but then I noticed
some other components with oval pads - like relays whose pins were very
widely spaced. So - is there an advantage of one pad style over the other
that I'm just not thinking of? Thanks!

Oval pads for DIL ICs used to be popular when routing tracks between pins.

There's no special reason. I used to use ' squarish ' pads for ICs many yrs
ago since it gave more pcb land for the pad itself. That's of some importance
when using SRBP material.

Graham

 

[Leon Heller]

"Michael Noone" <mnoone.uiuc.edu@127.0.0.1> wrote in message
news:Xns96259825089BCmnooneuiucedu127001@216.196.97.136...

Hi - I've been doing a good deal of PCB drawing with Eagle over the last
couple of days - and I've noticed something that I think is kind of odd.
While most components use round pads, some use oval shaped pads. For
example - all dual inline components that I've looked at in Eagle use oval
pads. So initially I was thinking that they were a way to keep pads
distanced but also leave plenty of space to solder - but then I noticed
some other components with oval pads - like relays whose pins were very
widely spaced. So - is there an advantage of one pad style over the other
that I'm just not thinking of? Thanks!

I often use oval pads for DIL chips on my home-made PCBs; I can get one
track between them without any problems and they are more robust then round
ones. I use round pads on PTH boards, of course.

Leon
--
Leon Heller, G1HSM
http://www.geocities.com/leon_heller