Hello everyone, I wish I had discovered Kicad years ago! I am new to Kicad, and the forum, so if this post is in the wrong area, please move it.Anyway, I designed a board that couples an ESP32 to a 4" TFT touch display, and everything works ok. My question is if my board would benefit from a ground plane? I see there is an exclusion area around the ESP32’s antenna. I am unsure how to post an image of my board here, so maybe that’s a good place to start. As a level 0 user (Yes, I did read the forum rules, LOL), I am quite limited. Any help is appreciated!
You can easily promote you to higher level:
Thank you Piotr. I saw that. It’s going to take awhile, lol.
Really your post is at wrong forum 
This forum tries to limit itself to only KiCad use questions and your question is not KiCad but electronic.
Not really.
Make sure you spend more than two minutes total, glancing through at least 18 posts, and you’re there.
Well, it seems you’re right about being in the wrong forum. Had I been able to post an image, I was going to ask about the best way to join ground plane areas, while leaving out the antenna exclusion zone in the PCB editor, but before I got that technical, I was hoping someone more experienced than I (which is probably about everyone) could give an opinion on whether a ground plane on this particular board was even warranted. Anyway, it’s all good. You all have a most blessed and peaceful day, and I’ll just show myself to the door…LOL.
Did you download the data sheet and design guidelines for the ESP32 CPU in question ? you will find good advice there.
So this is a general topic not a Kicad specific topic and as others have said… other forums or data can definitely help answer that generic question.
Lets say you did that, lets say you reviewed information from say… Cherry Clough or Henry Ott and you came to the correct conclusion, you would want to use Zones in Kicad to produce a ground plane.
Well, long story short, it did need a ground plane, and I had no problem putting it in, and adding an exclusion zone under the ESP32 antenna. I wouldn’t presume to tell you all how to run your house, but a general electronics section would be nice, similar to what the Arduino forum has, where people who aren’t electronics engineers can ask basic questions without the scolding; because those of us new to electronic board design with or without Kicad often don’t even know which questions to ask.
RTFM., LOL. I remember those heady days when the Linux community was composed of self-styled “experts”, who, because they had struggled to learn it, weren’t about to part with their hard-won knowledge to some runny-nosed newby. I’ve always felt that was a big reason why Linux never broke 5% on desktops. But, hey, what do I know?
There are many PCB design tools. Asking electronic questions at one of these tools forum effect is dramatic reduction a number of electronic knowledgeable people who will see it.
Only if we add a cats-video section!
And people who post a video that shows even just the tail of a dog should be punished with a lifelong ban.
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