I’m trying to get mixed thermal relief parameters for a ground zone. I have two connectors that have very dense pins and the default zone parameters won’t connect to the inner ground pins of the connectors. If I set the pad connection option as ‘solid’, it works, but I have several other connectors that don’t need this and I want to prevent soldering issues to them by having thermal relief spokes to the zone.
I carved out the main zone and created separate zones around the dense connectors but I cannot find a way to connect those to the main ground zone; when I move an edge it picks up the thermal relief options from the main zone, disconnecting the dense pins.
I also tried to connect the zones using tracks, but placing tracks on the zone layer causes the zone fill to avoid them. Finally, I tried adding a track to the back layer and connecting it to the internal ground plane zones with vias, but I seem unable to add a via to the start of the track.
Can this be done or am I simply pounding my head against an immovable wall?
I figured it out! I left the main zone alone, covering the entire inner layer, including the dense connectors. I then created a separate zone within it, surrounding the dense connector pins. I used the default thermal relief for the main zone, but selected solid for the inner zone. The main trick was increasing the priority of the inner zone. That allowed the new zone to use solid relief and pick up all the inner connector pins, while not changing the spoke relief of the main zone.
Hope this helps anyone else having a similar issue!
Not really sure if that worked. The DRC thinks the two zones are not connected, although they appear to be. I checked the gerber file for the layer, and there appears to be a very, very small gap between the main zone and the dense connector zones.
I’m not sure if I understood you correctly, but have you noticed that you can edit the footprint or even the indidual pad preferences so that they override the zone connection setting?