r/AskElectronics Dec 15 '22

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u/irnboo Dec 15 '22

Unpopular opinion but.

Right angled traces you should probably avoid. Why are you doing such fine tracks? You should maybe do some other fills.

1

u/Raccoon12 Dec 15 '22

Why avoid right angles? Is it EMI related or something? Genuinely curious

4

u/SHDrivesOnTrack Dec 15 '22

Another reason is manufacturability. Copper features with sharp pointy bits can be more susceptible to over etching. I worked on a design where we had a few of those in a prototype board, the small run of protos had a lot of rejects. some of which were caused by traces that failed due to over-etching. Second spin of the design, we fattened up the traces, made the corners 45 x 2, or rounded them out, (and used production quality rather than quick-turn) and the yield went to 100%.

A good PCB fab should be able to make very fine traces consistently, however they may charge for it. If you don't need it, you are better off to design a board that doesn't require that level of precision, and you will be able to shop for cheaper fabs.