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gEDA-user: PCB: Problems creating a ground plane and adding thermals



I have created a board (attached) based on DJ Delorie's tutorial ("Getting Started with PCB") but with a slight difference. Whereas he has some components on both sides and ends up with a 4 layer board, I want a single layer board (i.e. all SMDs) with a ground- plane on the top surface.

(If this sounds like you've heard it before, I did ask a similar question before but I had removed all but 1 layer of copper from the design - this time I've left things pretty much as per the default so I think I should be getting around that problem.)

I have the component and GND layer set to group 1 which it the Component side, and the Power and Solder layers in Group 2 which is the solder side.

All components have pads and there are no pins. I have arranged the components as I want them and I can create the routes as necessary.

I can create a 'ground plane' by using the rectangle/polygon operations with either the 'Component' or 'GND' layers selected - and this is where the story really starts.....

1) In either case, I cannot create a thermal between any pad and the ground plane. I would have thought that the polygon and the pads are i) in the same group and ii) possibly on the same layer, but the 'thermal' tool does not seem to create a connection between the pad and the polygon

2) How do I tell it that the GND net is supposed to be part of the GND plane. As it stands now, the ground plane is not covering the board because it thinks that the ground connections are signal lines and does not cross them.

I'm sure that I've done something wrong (again!) but I can't see what.

Thanks

Susan

Attachment: Board3.pcb.zip
Description: Zip archive




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