on a recent board i put some tracks on the power and ground planes to control the circulation of localized currents (aka 'cuts')
after some editing and addition of some more voids (primitives consisting of tracks and fills) to reduce capacitance under a few critical parts i almost released it before i noticed in one area that the combination of the voids and cuts left only a tiny area of continuity on one of the planes
caught in time, no problem, but it was all manual / visual
in discussing this with an associate he mentioned that PADs (i assume POWERPCB) would have reported on DRC the min amount of copper required
as he is an old hand with that program and from his tone i don't think this is something new for them
when i inquired 'what about if you put a power via over a void'?
he said of course their DRC would catch that too
Protel 99SE of course doesn't catch this and i don't think that P2004 does either, the warning 'primitives found on plane' is pretty lame
the PADs system seems much more sophisticated in this regard
as it seems they report the no connect status on the planes in this latter situation
can anyone handy w/ PADs confirm or elaborate on this ?
Dennis Saputelli
_______________________________________________________________________ Integrated Controls, Inc. Tel: 415-647-0480 EXT 107 2851 21st Street Fax: 415-647-3003 San Francisco, CA 94110 www.integratedcontrolsinc.com
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