Altium Board Slots

Altium Board Slots Average ratng: 3,5/5 6588 votes

For FR4 or HTFR4 PCBs greater than or equal to 0.06 in. (1.5 mm) thick, allow no more than five boards, side by side, up to 1.5-in. Board width, four boards up to 2.5-in. Board width, three boards. The size of the slots can be indicated in text together with tolerances ( if needed). Indicate only one border in your mechanical layer. If you want a round shaped PCB then we expect a round shaped contour, not a round shaped PCB inside a square box, as this will result in a square shaped PCB Examples. Acceptable contour file indicating slots.

Altium Board Slot
Altium Board Slots Game

In addition to the relatively small holes required for Through Hole PCB Assembly and the mounting holes located on a board, many PCBs also specify Slots and Cutouts, also known as Internal Routing. These names are used to refer to holes in the PCB that are too large or irregularly shaped to be created by normal drilling methods, and must instead be cut out with a routing bit during PCB Fabrication. Internal routing holes can be either plated or non-plated, as per the client’s request, since these holes are sometimes used to connect the board to other PCBs, or to the chassis of a device.
At Bittele Electronics, we sometimes receive questions from clients who wonder whether the presence of slots or cutouts in their PCB will act to increase the price or lead time of their project. Thanks to the flexible and comprehensive nature of our PCB Assembly Process, we are able to assure these clients that their slots and cutouts will cost them no more than a regular drill hole in the PCB.
The only additional thing to keep in mind when specifying internal routing on your PCB is that, while not particularly uncommon, these types of holes are not exactly standard either. As such, it would be beneficial to call attention to these features in a mechanical layer of your Gerber Files, and perhaps in your initial email to Bittele, along with your PCB Design Files.
For detailed information regarding the design of internal routing, please see our comprehensive guide on Best Practices for Plated Slots, which also covers non-plated internal routing practices.
You can also Contact Us with any further questions. Feel free to reach out over email at sales@7pcb.com any time, or call us toll-free at 1-888-812-1949.
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Altium Designer is a professional PCB design tool.

Design Rule Setup

Downloadable Files

Kind customers have provided loadable DRC rule and Stackup files for our 2 and 4 layer services.

Note, these files are not exhaustively validated or guaranteed by OSHPark, and may contain errors. Use your judgment and always verify your designs meet our service specs to prevent design defects that could affect your boards. If you have corrections or find errors, please email support.

known issues: Current minimum 2 layer specs are 10 mil drill hits, with 5 mil annular rings. The RUL file currently shows the older 13mil drill and 6mil ring

Generating Manufacturing Files

For accessing the various menus and output screens, see Altium’s Gerber Setup

Disabling “ Mechanical Layers to Add to All Gerber Plots”

Altium tools have the option Mechanical Layers to Add to All Gerber Plots, which must have all layers unchecked. Many footprints contain mechanical “courtyard” or “pick and place” data on these layers. When these footprints are added to copper layers, it can create gerbers that will be fabricated with shorts. See Altium’s Gerber Setup for information on how to access this setting.

Internal Plane Polarity

We recommend submitting planes with a Positive polarity. See our Positive vs Negative Gerbers page for additional information.

Board Outline

We need a watertight board outline on its own layer with no extra text or measurements. This tells us where the fab should mill the edges of the board. This layer can also contain board cutouts.

For best results, place the outline by itself on the Keep Out, or on a Mechanical Layer (normally 1 or 2). This will generate the outline on .GKO or a .GM<number> file.

Drills

Drill files should work without issues for most export options. If the drill files do not appear correct, check out our Drill File CAM configuration page for settings that we know will work correctly.

Slots

Altium’s native Slot callout is supported. See our [slots][slots] guide for limitations and DRC requirements of slots.

Common Issues

Missing Drill File

Altium keeps the drill data in the project-name.TXT file. Make sure any uploaded zip files include this file.

Drill file not being read correctly

Try exporting the drill file with the INCH units. Some format issues in METRIC are more difficult to reliably correct.

Internal Layer names

If you’re using a 4 layer stackup with both “power” and “signal” internal layers, Altium will generate the internal layers as GP1 and G1. Unfortunately, this makes it impossible for us to determine the correct layer order, since multiple layers identify themselves as “Internal Layer 1”.