Wire diameter vs PCB hole diameter

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sinner
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Post by sinner »

Can you tell me what hole diameter for 22AGW and 24AGW wire I should make when designing PCB?

Thanks

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electrosonic
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Post by electrosonic »

Wikipedia has a nice chart

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_wire_gauge

22 AWG (american wire gauge) = 0.0253 inches diameter or 25.3 mils (thousands of an inch)

24 AWG = 0.0201 inches diameter or 20.1 mils

In RGs book he recommends 40 mil holes for off-board wiring - I guess this would allow you to tin the wires and still fit.

Andrew.

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Post by sinner »

Oh, I was sure it must be much more... Thanks, I think I'll keep all pads 0,8mm spaced and I should be fine

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Post by sinner »

Necrobump

I'm redoing my Diptrace library, and I'm trying to stick to general rules and guidelines this time

When it comes to hole diameter some resources says to add 6 mils to the nominal round lead diameter to get the recommended PCB hole diameter.

I had PCB's with to narrow pad holes before (couldn't fit the preamp filter cap on board, not my PCB design), so I'm just wondering is 6mils is enough.

In general I'm using the same part types continuously (the same lead thickness) so I don't think it may be to critical issue, but some parts are/may go out of production and I really don't want to redo may library one more time

Should I stick to +6 mil tolerance or go wider?

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Post by Dirk_Hendrik »

Go wider. Six mil is 0.15mm so just looking at the stripped copper wire gives a diameter increase already. Other than that it depends on the PCB manufacturer and how they treat hole diameters and the thickness of the through plating. Do they increase your specified diameter to make up for the plate through or will your hole diameter decease with the plate through thickness.
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Post by Dirk_Hendrik »

And do an internet search for the ipc-2220 series guidelines for PCB design (and IPC7351). You probably will not find the latest revisions but the older ones are a wealth of good data just the same.
starter:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPC_%28electronics%29
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Post by sinner »

Good info. Standardised guidelines is what I heeded

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