I am trying to make a PCB for the first time and am concerned about the sizes of the soldering pads over the actual dimensions that I should realize on the board. That is, with the following diagram:
What size should the top pin's pad be? The dimensions for this pin are given as 3.00 x 1.75 mm. About what size should the associated soldering pad be and what (if any) is the general rule?
Best Answer
The drawing in the O.P. comes from a datasheet. Some datasheets have a dimensioned drawing for the footprint (land pattern). Here's an example. Notice that the pads (top right corner) a somewhat wider than the legs.
Originally from here. Found this by googling SOT-223.
SOT-223 is a fairly common package. It's likely that your layout software has a standard footprint for it. There's a good chance that it's accurate.