A few days ago I ordered a double sided board from JLCPCB. This board is pretty simple with no fancy requirements that I can see. JLCPCB replied that the board had 3 layers. One layers was a copper plane.
I’ve not been able to see this in the Gerbers I submitted but cancelled the order to verify all is correct.
Has anyone run into such an issue?
edit:
Now I think I know the source of the issue they see.
I have a thermal “ground plane” on the top of the board.
There are several components connected to it so I selected thermal reliefs.
The power generating device is and SOT-223. With thermal reliefs selected the tab gets thermal reliefs as well.
To eliminate the thermal reliefs on the tab I added another small ground plane around the tab. My guess it is causing some issue.
This screenshot shows the thermal reliefs and the small 2nd ground plane moved off to the left.
Only the top clad is shown.
No. Can you post your project here? What types of files did you submit? Did you include an extra layer by accident? Maybe you updated the zip when you meant to create from scratch and there was a stray layer on the old zip? There should be 9 files for a typical 2-layer board.
I couldn’t have included some Maverick layer but I updated my original post to mention the existence of two ground planes (one on top of the other) both connected to “GND”
I’m going to take a look at this area to see if I can sort it out. Else I will upload the project.
What form should the upload be? I know folks are reluctant to open a ZIP.
I was thinking more of folks being reluctant to open a ZIP file from a poster.
I regenerated the Gerber files and they look fine to me. Only 2 copper layers. I printed both to PDF and will submit with the order.
I’ll report for future reference.
Lots of people here look at other’s projects in zip files. As long as you don’t extract it with a privileged account, and look through the list of files first, it should be ok. You’re going to post the gerbers and not the schematic and layout, right?
Adding to @retiredfeline; @JR you are a regular poster here. I have you hung on the wall (what else does one do with a poster? Are you an imposter?) so I can throw darts! Seriously we open .zips on this forum all the time and you are well recognized.
I would not have done what you did for the SOT223 but that is beside the point. I avoid thermal reliefs altogether and do all of my soldering with a propane torch. Seriously with half oz or 1 oz copper it is not too hard to solder to a top or bottom ground plane with a 40W iron and wide screwdriver tip. Internal ground layers in a 4 layer board may be more difficult but I still do not use thermal reliefs. I DO have a 100W/140W soldering gun which use occasionally. Dang I need to get some new tips for that thing.
I found my error. it was as @retiredfeline first suggested a Maverick copy of one layer got into the zip!
My Gerbers are plotted to a directory under the project. the Directory is /gerber.
It is my habit to delete all the files in /gerber when I have to go back and make a tweak. I must have missed deleting one file because there was copy of one file.
Thank you for your time an effort chasing this ghost issue
Seriously we open .zips on this forum all the time and you are well recognized.
) to submit, I do these checks out of habit: