Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange
Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [copper-pour]

The term "copper pour" refers to an area on a printed circuit board filled with copper

In electronics, the term "copper pour" refers to an area on a printed circuit board filled with copper (the metal used to make connections in printed circuit boards). Copper pour is commonly used to create a ground plane. Another reason for using copper pour is to reduce the amount of etching fluid used during manufacturing.

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Will copper pour help on my single-layer PCB?

I have a PCB which contains one 20x4 LCD, eighteen 12x12 mm push buttons, and three LEDs. This board is connected to an Arduino Mega through a 30 cm long ribbon cable. Now during testing, I found that sometimes the LCD goes blank. In my previous…
saki gujjar
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No ground pour in SMPS PCB?

I was looking at Garber files of the boost PFC reference designs by TI for my own SMPS. I noticed that most of their design don't make full use of the plane by filling them with a ground pour for example [image of PMP40766]: *top layer yellow and…
KMN
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To pour, or not to pour? (And why?)

Summary / Question I have this PCB (top only): There is essentially no "signalling" happening here, and the only divergences from steady-state are when the input AC (T1) turns on or off, or when the right pair of pins of T3 are shorted (causing the…
Matthew
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Why are ground pours isolated from each other on the top layer?

I am reading the application note from TI about the LM3409 evaluation board. In the board layout (Figure 3) the bottom layer is a single GND pour. But top layer has also some copper pours which end up being connected to ground, such as the ones at…
feralgeometry
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Confining signal using stitching vias on a 2 layer PCB

I have read in some questions (for example: Via Stitching on 2 Layer PCB when top layer is not fully ground pour ), that stitching vias are useless when one's PCB only has 2 layers, however people do not mention the reason why. As I understand it…
DarkBulle
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Unconnected Copper Pour or Not?

I'm finishing a small PCB that has too many traces in order to realize a good ground plane. The circuit doesn't need particular layout precautions, so this is not a problem. Since the ground plane option is excluded, is it better to leave an…
Oceanic815
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What happens to copper pours that are 'too narrow'?

What happens to copper pours that are narrower than PCB manufacturer spec? Let's say spec is 10/10 mils (trace/space) and the copper pour in between soic-08 is only 5mils because it can't be wider (soic-08 pad pitch - 2x 10mil space). Should I 'take…
Tim
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PCB layout - ground plane clearance around and under a ceramic resonator

We are using Murata's 4MHz ceramic resonator (CSTCR4M00G53-R0) in one of our designs and request help in PCB layout design around the ceramic resonator. The below Murata's FAQs page suggests not to place any GND plane under the ceramic resonator.…
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Why were hatched polygons pours used instead of solid pours in the past?

While reading [David L. Jones]'s PCB Design Tutorial, he mentions that hatched polygon pours are a thing of the past. Solid fills are preferred, hatched fills are basically a thing of the past. (Page 8) I clearly see the advantage of solid pours…
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How to set polygon clearance around the edge of the board in Eagle?

I created a polygon that I intend to use as a heatsink. The problem is that there is a lot of clearance at the edge of the board, much more than around traces even, why is that? How can I set board clearance independent of isolation setting of the…
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Benefits of top and bottom ground pour in multilayer boards with proper ground plane layers and stackup

I'm trying to get some analytical feeling for the use of ground pours on bottom and top layer in multilayer boards with proper stackups such as (for example). Top Gnd Sig1 Power Power Sig2 Gnd Bottom Every signal net has an adjacent ground plane…
Steinar
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PCB Design - Polygon pour remove islands or not?

Sometimes a polygon pour (I use Altium, so I am using it's naming reference, for other packages it can be power plane and etc.) makes a dead copper area, and the software gives you the option to remove it or no, but why someone will want to not…
mFeinstein
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Am I wrong for pouring copper on the PCB?

Since my early hobbyist days when ferric chloride felt expensive, I designed my PCBs with as much copper left on the PCB as possible so my acid solution could last as long as possible. Since then, I have made it a habit to make copper pours where…
Ole Wolf
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Does a Guard Ring around a PLL loop filter make sense?

Should I guard a PLL loop filter against current leakage with a pour? If so, where can I connect the guard plane? As an illustration: I use an IC in need of an external PLL-loop-filter connected to the charge pump (a MAX2769). The manufacturer…
Andreas
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PCB Heater design issues

I'm using copper tracks laid out on an FR4 board as a heater device. It's a serpentine design with the copper 0.3mm wide and 0.2mm spacing. I have three sets of tracks which I intend to heat up at different temperatures, one of which at 95°C. At…
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