That is certainly true and well-worth doing, but you should still make 
sure the copper plane is at ground potential at non-zero frequencies or 
you will end up with a large antenna attached to your circuit.

Regards,

Robert.

Andy Eskelson wrote:
> Another use for zones is to reduce the amount of copper that you need to
> etch away.
> 
> Andy
> 
> 
> 
> On Sat, 04 Jul 2009 09:56:12 +0100
> Robert <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
>> Zones are used to create power planes (also known as ground planes, 
>> though strictly speaking that refers specifically to a conductive plane 
>> at ground potential).   If designed correctly they will reduce 
>> electromagnetic emissions from your board and reduce its susceptibility 
>> to electromagnetic fields.   Typically on a two layer board you have one 
>> plane for ground on one side, and one on the other side for V+ (as that 
>> makes the most efficient use of the available area), but of course you 
>> may have more than one supply voltage (possibly both positive and 
>> negative), in which case having multiple supply voltage zones may be 
>> helpful.   Note that the supply voltage planes *do* need to be 
>> electrically connected to the ground plane at all non-zero frequencies 
>> in order to be useful (typically that is achieved with the liberal 
>> application of decoupling capacitors).
>>
>> Multi-layer boards allow you to reduce the size of the holes in your 
>> power planes (which is a good thing), but I'm guessing you will be 
>> creating two layer boards.
>>
>> Before designing your board I do recommend that you do a bit of research 
>> first to learn what makes a good power plane and what will give the 
>> board more EMC problems than having no planes at all.   Fortunately it's 
>> not hard stuff to learn (unless you want to go into the theory).
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Robert
>>
>> [email protected] wrote:
>>> Ive read the help Docs in PCBnew on zones,but i still don't get
>>> what they are used for.
>>> Are they just for placing v+ and gnd ?
>>> Couldn't I just place vias or pins for v+ and gnd?
>>> Should i just make 2 polygons, one for v+ and one for gnd?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your 
>>> question.
>>> Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of 
>>> Kicad.
>>> Please visit http://www.kicadlib.org for details of how to contribute your 
>>> symbols/modules to the kicad library.
>>> For building Kicad from source and other development questions visit the 
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>> ------------------------------------
>>
>> Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your 
>> question.
>> Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of 
>> Kicad.
>> Please visit http://www.kicadlib.org for details of how to contribute your 
>> symbols/modules to the kicad library.
>> For building Kicad from source and other development questions visit the 
>> kicad-devel group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kicad-develYahoo! Groups 
>> Links
>>
>>
>>
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------
> 
> Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your 
> question.
> Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of 
> Kicad.
> Please visit http://www.kicadlib.org for details of how to contribute your 
> symbols/modules to the kicad library.
> For building Kicad from source and other development questions visit the 
> kicad-devel group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kicad-develYahoo! Groups 
> Links
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> 
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