Support for Hole Tolerance

Setting hole tolerance attributes can help determine the fits and limits of your board. To make board manufacturing more seamless, Altium Designer 16 now includes the option to add hole tolerance attributes to pads and vias. Hole tolerance columns can be added to, and viewed in, your Drill Table.

Access

By default, there is no set hole tolerance value. However, you can adjust hole tolerance attributes in the pad and via property dialogs respectively. Hole tolerances and defaults can also be set in the Pad Via Library panel and in the Footprint Library.

Setting Hole Tolerances

Hole Tolerance can be accessed and edited in a few different places. Minimum (-) and maximum (+) hole tolerance attributes can be set.

Setting Hole Tolerance Attributes for Specific Pads and Vias

• Right-click on the pad or via and select Properties.
  • In the Pad dialog, hole tolerance can be edited under the Hole Information section.
  • In the Via dialog, hole tolerance can be edited under Tolerance, in the top left-hand corner of the dialog.

 Creating Hole Tolerance Attributes for a Pad or Via Template

• Right-click in the Pad Via Library panel and select Add Via Template or Add Pad Template. Hole tolerance can be set under the Hole Information section.

Setting Hole Tolerance Attributes for Multiple Pads or Vias at Once

• Use the PCB Inspector panel. After selecting the desired pads or vias on the PCB that you wish to set hole tolerance for, enter the necessary hole tolerance values in the panel, in the right-hand column under Object Specific.
• Hole tolerance columns can also be added to and edited from the PCB panel, when configured in its Hole Size Editor mode. Right-click under the Unique Holes header and select Columns » Hole Tolerance (+) and/or Hole Tolerance (-). By clicking in the hole tolerance columns, the tolerance attributes can be changed.

Adding Hole Tolerance to Via Stitching/Via Shielding

• Go to Tools » Via Stitching/Shielding » Add Stitching to Net. Hole tolerance information can be added through the Add Stitching to Net dialog, under Tolerance in the Via Style section.
• Go to Tools » Via Stitching/Shielding » Add Shielding to Net. Hole tolerance information can be added through the Add Shielding to Net dialog, under Tolerance in the Via Style section.

Displaying Hole Tolerance in the Drill Table

The drill table offers a couple options for viewing hole tolerance options. You can choose whether the drill table uses one or two columns to display tolerance attributes. From the Drill Table dialog, click Add Column. To view all tolerances attributes in one column, select Hole Tolerance. This column will display the minimum and maximum set attributes together. Alternatively, you can choose to display the minimum and maximum set hole tolerance attributes in separate columns. For the latter option, select  Hole Tolerance (+) and  Hole Tolerance (-). You can of course also choose to display only the minimum or maximum set hole tolerance independently.

Example drill table with all hole tolerance columns present.

After adding columns to drill table, you must click Okay to exit the Drill Table dialog, or your changes won't be saved.

When adding hole tolerance information to pads and vias, unless all pads or vias grouped under the Count column have the same hole tolerance attributes, hole tolerance values will be displayed as an * (asterisk).

You can also choose to group objects by their hole tolerance. From the Drill Symbols dialog (click Configure Drill Symbols in the Drill Table dialog), click Grouping and select Hole Tolerance.