High current pcb traces 5v at 20a

[Mad Professor]

Good day all.
 
I am trying to design a prototype pcb in driptrace, and I will be looking at having the board(s) manufactured.

I have two traces that need to be able to carry a load of 5v up to 20A, Looking on-line it would require a trace width of around 18mm.

When I have stripped down old computer power supplies, the high current traces normally have a thick coating of solder, or lines of solder.

As I would like to get the board(s) manufactured how do I go about removing the solider mask for the high current traces.
There must be a way of doing this, But I guess I just don't know where I am looking.

Or is there a better way about doing this?

Thanks for your time.
 
Best Regards.

[sleemanj]

Don't know if it's the "right" way, but you can choose Bottom (or Top) Mask from the drawing options, then select the line drawing, and draw lines of appropriate width (set width in the properties dialog on right side of the window) where you want the mask to be excluded, this works (in the 3d preview at least).

I did an example for you, first image shows settings and line drawn (note that line appears under the trace, weird, probably a bug maybe) and second image shows the 3d preview, the dark green is the board, the lighter green is the mask, so you can see that the mask has been excluded where the line is.

[Mad Professor]

Thanks for your quick reply.

I was hunting around all of the menu's trying to find an option something like "remove mask from trace" or something like that.

But your way seems to be doing the job just fine.

Thanks again.

[Flávio V]

I use the polygon shape to remove trace/copper pour solder mask, and seems to work just fine, but not really a nice way to do it, but it does work...