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This seems to me like a pretty silly question, but how would I go about drawing thermal vias under a thermal pad on an LED in Eagle CAD 6.5?

I am using the Phillips Luxeon T series which has an electrically isolated thermal pad.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Are you getting warnings from the DRC with the vias in place or what is the problem? This is related and may help you. \$\endgroup\$
    – Rev
    Aug 29, 2013 at 18:11
  • \$\begingroup\$ The problem is that I'm a bit of a noob at this :P I don't know how to represent thermal vias in my schematic/board layout... Maybe I just have a misunderstanding of what a thermal via is... are they just normal vias placed under the thermal pad? \$\endgroup\$ Aug 29, 2013 at 18:23
  • \$\begingroup\$ Yes, there are no "special thermal vias" in eagle. But be aware of this. \$\endgroup\$
    – Rev
    Aug 29, 2013 at 20:57

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Just add normal vias using the via command. As you said:

They are just normal vias placed under the thermal pad

The drill size may become important if you are going to production, since the vias will suck some of the solder. Also it may be a good idea to keep the other side of the PCB without solder-mask if you are going to hand-solder this board.

Rant: It's possible to write a ULP program to create a via matrix, but since nobody needs so much vias it doesn't exist.

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