On Wed, 8 Oct 2008 08:09:13 -0700 (PDT), David <dgvalde@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:
>Hi everyone!
>
>I'm having problems with Orcad Layout. I've desgned a PCB for my
>company and I've sent the GERBER files to the factory. But the factory
>operator said me that the ground planes I've created on my design
>aren't solid planes and they must be solid planes.
>
>My idea was to use all the unused PCB surface to make the ground
>tracks bigger, so they take all the space available where there are
>any tracks. Therefore I've place a big copper pour obstacle associated
>to the ground net. The result seems to be really good, I mean I can
>see a lot of copper areas going around the tracks.
>
>But the factory guy said that, actually, the copper obstacles are made
>of thousands of little tracks (about 75000 tracks!!). So they just see
>a lot of tracks instead of a real copper area despite it seems a
>homogeneous area. But this is a problem for the PCB's machine.
>
>Somehow I needto tell Orcad that the copper pour must be a continuous
>and homogeneous area.
>
>Could you help me? I need to work out with this problem now!
>
>Regards
The copper pours are normally made up of many draw lines. You can
control the number of lines by specifying the width of the line in the
obstacle dialog box. Somewhere in the 5 to 10 mil width is good. If
your design isn't crowded, then you can use a wider width like 20
mils.
Also, be sure that your plane is set to solid. There are other options
in the obstacle dialog which let you set hatched planes for copper
robber patterns.
You should be able to preview what Gerber data looks like with
GerbTool which comes packaged with certain versions of Layout
(Tools|GerbTool). If you don't have GerbTool, download one of the free
Gerber viewers to see what your board really looks like. If fact, you
should always view your Gerber data before sending it out to be sure
that the Gerber data matches what you think you should have.
Be sure to set your copper pour preferences in Options|User
Preferences to Enable copper pour and use pours for connectivity. Fast
mode and skeleton display should be turned off. Layout will bugger the
copper pours if copper preferences aren't set up correctly.
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