I've seen some conflicting recommendations about how to design 2-layer boards, particularly with respect to filling in all unused areas of the board with solid copper and connecting that to ground. I can't dig up the reference right now, but I had read somewhere that this is a bad idea -- something about the solid areas acting as antennae or something like that, or traces cutting through the "planes" forming current loops with a plane segment in the middle.
So -- two questions: Is it a good idea to fill unused areas with copper, and what should those areas be connected to? Should I use them as ground, and actually connect components to them, or connect them to ground but route ground to the components separately (star ground)? Or should I leave them completely unconnected? Obviously, I will do my best avoid ground loops in any case, which is not that hard to acheive if you just connect one line from the rat's nest at a time, thereby avoiding redundant connections, right? TIA for any advice, Randall _______________________________________________ geda-user mailing list [email protected] http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
