Altium: One resistor, mutliple values in library

I've always just written a custom console for my applications. I do reuse code between them a lot though depending on what type of support they need to provide.

I base most of my consoles on a command/response format where the system provides a prompt '>' then the user enters a command which is buffered. When the user enters a 'CR' the buffered command is executed. The system generates a reply and provides another prompt.

If the interface to the console is automated and binary transfers are required you will need to come up with a way to escape the 'CR' so that it is not interpreted as an end of command.

As far as I can tell the basic components of any console are:

• Interrupt for receiving and buffering input
• Task for processing buffered input and printing the response

I suspect that the reason for the different footprints is to allow for the different heights of different parts.

For example, a SMT ceramic capacitor is typically about as tall as it is wide. While a "typical" 0402 resistor I just looked up (here) is 0.5 mm wide, but only 0.35 mm tall.

Because the capacitor is taller, it needs a longer "toe" in its footprint to allow a good solder fillet to form (I haven't checked if this is actually what's different between Altium's resistor and capacitor footprints).

Altium's footprints are just a reasonable guess at good footprints for typical parts in each category (resistor, capacitor, inductor). To really optimize your design for high manufacturing yield, you should consider the actual height of each part number in your design, and account for your manufacturing process: for example, reflow and wave soldering have slightly different requirements for optimum pad sizes.