Ordering PCB: solder mask openings

[last5bits]

First, thank you very much for your hard work on this keyboard! I'm a total newbie and this is my first time ordering a PCB, so any help would be much appreciated.

After submitting the 3.5.4 version of the keyboard to the PCB vendor, they asked me this:

As shown below, there's no solder mask opening for below indicated holes. Here we have 2 suggestions. Please make a choice.

A: Open them to be covered by tin on both sides. So that they can be soldered components.

B:Follow the file to cover them with solder mask ink.

Which one is it?

[JellyTitan]

Some of the solder masks have been intentionally omitted so that components can't be soldered in the wrong orientation.

I haven't seen this vendor error before though - and those arrows are all over the place, which makes it hard to tell exactly what they are getting at. I would recommend going with option A. It sounds like they will tweak the file to allow for soldering on the unsolder-able areas - which should be fine. During assembly, be sure to pay close attention to which side the components are mounting on.

Which manufacturer is this, btw?

[last5bits]

Thanks so much! This is JLCPCB.

[JellyTitan]

@last5bits when those PCB's come in, can you post some pictures?

[last5bits]

Sure thing

[JellyTitan]

Oh! Thats really interesting - they essentially de-poka-yoke'd it by adding solder masks to both sides. I see how that could be perceived as an error. Thanks for posting - i'll update the help section & the ordering section with a note about JLC flagging it.

I wonder if "Confirm Production File" kicked off this issue - do you recall if you checked that option?

[last5bits]

No, I chose "No" for "Confirm Production file".