Author Topic: Most common trace width?  (Read 149 times)

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Offline rea5245Topic starter

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Most common trace width?
« on: Today at 02:12:07 am »
When you design a PCB, what is the trace width setting you most often use?

The reason I ask is that I run PCBShopper.com (a price comparison site for PCB manufacturing). I've set the default trace width on the quote form to 7 mils, and I think most users do not think to change it.

But one American manufacturer offers much lower prices for 8 mil boards, so default PCBShopper search results exclude those deals. Another manufacturer's 2 oz copper boards require 8 mils, and their prices get excluded.

Am I being overly restrictive, setting the default to 7 mils? If most people set their PCB layout defaults to 8 mils, maybe I should change my default. (I usually use 6 mils on my boards, but I might be unusual.)
 

Offline Someone

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Re: Most common trace width?
« Reply #1 on: Today at 02:20:53 am »
Plenty of the volume houses are using metric as their base units and round up for wrong units. So I get finer boards at no extra cost by specifying 0.2mm
 

Offline MarkF

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Re: Most common trace width?
« Reply #2 on: Today at 02:37:19 am »
I use DipTrace and its default trace width is 13 mil.
I don't change it unless it's necessary.
The times I have changed it have been to make it wider. 
Like 0.5mm or 1mm for normal traces.

Why have your traces hair thin unless it's necessary?
« Last Edit: Today at 05:48:38 am by MarkF »
 

Offline exmadscientist

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Re: Most common trace width?
« Reply #3 on: Today at 02:38:34 am »
Almost always 5/5 (really 125um/125um). Manufacturers never blink at this. I could use wider copper for a lot of things, but it's not worth the increase in routing time, and my library is all set up to a 125um grid as much as possible anyway. I do use lots of fills and wide traces for power, but still on that 125um base.
 

Online ataradov

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Re: Most common trace width?
« Reply #4 on: Today at 03:10:40 am »
I default to 10 mil and drop to 6 mil when necessary.
Alex
 


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