Solder mask keepout areas in Altium

[David_AVD]

I use AD10 and wanted to leave some areas of the bottom layer unmasked so they would be tinned.  I did this by adding keep-out regions (polygons) on the bottom solder layer.

The prototype board came back, but only the pads were tinned.  Everything else including the regions I'd masked was covered by the solder mask.

When I view the bottom layer in AD10, I see my manually masked regions along with generated areas for the pads.

The PCB house are saying they are not seeing the extra regions I added.  Maybe I'm doing this wrong - any ideas?

[gxti]

Did you draw a keep-out, or just a regular polygon? Because keep-outs are for copper, and won't do anything if you don't have a polygon pour. Solder masks are already "negative" layers (solid areas have no soldermask) so you just have to draw with regular primitives. If you can, check in the 3d view. That's the easiest way to see what altium thinks about your soldermask.

Otherwise, you probably sent the wrong gerbers, or there is perhaps a conversion problem. I always check everything with a second tool (gerbview, from the kicad suite).

[David_AVD]

I drew them as solid regions with the Keep-Out attribute (Place > Keep-Out > Solid Region) on the bottom solder layer.

As you suspected, the expected (by me) areas don't show up in 3D view.  I turned off the Keep-Out attribute and it does show up in 3D.

It seems like I didn't understand how that worked.  Another day, another thing learned.  Thanks for your help.   

[dfnr2]

Draw them as regions in the solder mask layer.  Do not set the keep-out attribute.   Use the 3D view and Gerber files to verify.

[free_electron]

keep outs are for the router and drc checker. they do NOTHING in the gerber !

to open soldermask : simply select the soldermask layer and draw lines, polygons or fills. That's it.

[David_AVD]

Yep, all good now.  Thanks again.

[alberto_84]

Hi,
how can i turn off keep out attribute in order to show solder mask cut area in 3d view?

[Zman]

you do not need a keep-out, just place a fill or polygon to your solder mask layer and it will be properly shown in 3D

[wxm145]

do you have gerber file?




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