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Powerplanes - Watch Out !

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Iain Wilkie

United Kingdom
1015 Posts

Posted - 24 Dec 2008 : 17:29:55

Please note that it would appear that net completion DRC does NOT work on the powerplane feature. If the powerplane becomes heavily perforated due to vias and the clearance gaps merge creating isolated areas of powerplane copper, the isolated copper does not show as unconnected in the DRC check.
Use copper-pour to produce powerplanes and you will not get hit by this problem.

Perhaps Peter could comment on this

Peter Johnson

United Kingdom
498 Posts

Posted - 05 Jan 2009 : 13:04:21

Yes, this is absolutely correct. It's because the method used to create basic powerplanes is much less sophisticated than that used for copper pour. It was (and is) intended for layers with either no, or at best minimal track coverage.

The problem is that even if there are isolated areas of copper, the method of producing output offers no way of removing them, so there's little point in checking for a problem that can't be resolved. As Iain says, if there are likely to be issues such as this, then copper pour is the safer option to use.

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