Continue placing further pads or right-click or press Esc to exit placement mode.Position the cursor then click or press Enter to place a pad.Right-click in the workspace then select Place » Pad from the context menu.Īfter launching the command, the cursor will change to a crosshair and you will enter pad placement mode.Click the button on the PCB Lib Placement toolbar.Click the button on the Wiring toolbar.Right-click in the workspace then click Place » Pad from the context menu.Once a command has been used, it will become the topmost item on that section of the Active Bar.) (Click and hold an Active Bar button to access other related commands. Click the Pad button ( ) in the drop-down on the Active Bar located at the top of the workspace.Choose Place » Pad from the main menus.Pads are available for placement in both the PCB and the PCB Library editors in one of the following ways:
#Altium designer 18 polygon to pin free#
Pads can be used individually as free pads in a design, or more typically, they are used in the PCB Library editor, where they are incorporated with other primitives into component footprints. In the X and Y planes, pads can have a circular, rectangular, octagonal, or rounded rectangular shape. The barrel-shaped body of the pad is formed when the board is drilled and through-plated during fabrication. Pads can exist on a single layer, for example, as a Surface Mount Device pad, or they can be a three-dimensional through-hole pad, having a barrel-shaped body in the Z-plane (vertical) with a flat area on each (horizontal) copper layer. Pads are used for fixing the component to the board and for creating the interconnection points from the component pins to the routing on the board. SummaryĪ pad is a primitive design object. Pads are used to provide both mechanical mounting and electrical connections to the component pins.