Will autoroute use copper pour or filled zone?

Layout
1

I have a 2 layer board and want to create copper filled zone to be used as ground. If I create the filled zone first, will autoroute utilize the fill zone for ground connections?

2

Not sure about auto-route, but the DRC will.

3

Thanks. I ran a test boardā€¦ looks like it does! Very cool.

4

Hmmā€¦after closer examination, it seems to not work correctly/fully. Some tracks on the pour side, that should not be connected to the pour are indeed connected. :frowning:

5

The pour should only connect to things with the same net name.
Can you post a screen capture of the problem area, preferably with the net labels showing?

6

1011Ɨ832 12.6 KB

Hereā€™s a snapshot with filled area on the back side turned on. The filled area is defined as GND net. As you can see in the snapshot, none of the pads for D3 and D2 should not be connected but appear to be. Iā€™m thinking that the order of operations may make a difference. When I attempted this, created the copper zone BEFORE I ran the auto route. Here is a snapshot of the back as a 3D view
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7

Well that doesnā€™t look right. Is the green area supposed to be GND net?
As a test, try changing the fill are to GNDA net to see how the fill looks.

8

Hi!
Did you press B?

9

Can you elaborate? What does pressing ā€œBā€ do?

10

Recalculates all pours :slight_smile:

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11

sq5rix, ok thanks. That seems like a great feature. Much easier than deleting my copper zone and redraing it. However I press B and nothing happens. When and which mode do I press B?

12

Anytime you feel you want a recalculation of all zones that are thereā€¦
If you use [CTRL]+[B] all fills will be removed (zones will be still there) - so you can check if really ā€˜nothing happensā€™.

PS: also try [Shift]+[?] :wink:

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13

Joan - thanks for the explanation and for the shortcut to the shortcut menu! :smilegrinning: Oddly, I tried [Shift]+[?] the first time and the menu pop up looked different (icons for buttons) than it did subsequent times (just a list) :confused: [so much of Kicad is inconsistant :frowning: ]
?

14

Itā€™s not a commercial product that needs to convince with those traits :slightly_smiling:
Afaik, it will take some more years till you will be able to see ā€˜stableā€™ things - if that is possible at all for a project like thisā€¦

As for different lists, EEschema & PCBnew are different modules. Never tested if the editors have this alsoā€¦

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15

Joan the Spark is the best !!

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