Might be a stupid question, but I'm new to this, so I have lots of stupid questions!
But ya, are all through holes (ie. where components go through the board) plated automatically or do via's have to be used?
This for a rather simple 2 layer board, using kicad as the layout tool.
From the boards I've received, yes. I'm using Eagle, but even some bigger mounting holes I made in my boards are plated on the inside. It's not bad though and they're isolated. Even with a ground copper pour on my top layer, the plated hole in the middle wasn't connected to it or anything.
Mostly not a big problem. Except when you use holes as mousebites. You'll get a bare copper on the sides.
On a few boards that I have received so far, the mounting holes and mousebite holes were non-plated. In the gerber files, the non plated holes and slots are drawn on the outline layer (GML). In addition, there are no pads around the holes. I don't know which of those two criteria is used for the decision to make non-plated holes, however.
Thanks for the replies everyone, I was just a little hazy on if I need to do anything to make sure the hole was plated (I do want them to be plated), but it seems unless its a mounting hole or you specifically place a footprint without a pad then it is automatically plated.
Standard PCB boardhouses will take copper pads around a hole as an indication that it should be plated. That's pretty standard, presumably this one is doing the same thing.