Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Homebrew PCBs

track between ic pins (standard dil) is absolutely NO problem.
you can even do this with plotting resist on.

i think with photo process it would be well possible to make two traces
between the pads.
but i never tried because i didn't need.

i always make very long pads for dil ics. up to 4mm long.
but i make them only wide enough to allow some copper at the sides of the
drilled hole left.
so you get a good solder joint and can very easily run a thick track
between pads.
i don't use round pads for dil. i like to have bigger pads, especially with
"experimental" boards, this allows soldering parts in and out
some times if needed and also makes other modifications easier.
with my first boards years ago i sticked to the standard pads set in the
software.
these were designed for throughhole plated boards, thus having only a small
residual ring around the hole.
when i drilled sometimes this ring was broken on one side. you can imagine
the mechanical stability was very poor.
now i use pads of 3mm or so on the simple boards where size doesn't matter.


Also for transistors i often use oblong pads.

i think worst components are 2 row connectors, maybe d-sub connectors and
plcc sockets.
these components often can't have oblong pads because they have multiple
rows of pins.
then i use round pads which are just small enough to run a track between
two.

i hope this helped....

regards
stefan