Author Topic: Altium: power plane connect only on some layers?  (Read 2131 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline KentxuTopic starter

  • Newbie
  • Posts: 4
  • Country: nz
Altium: power plane connect only on some layers?
« on: December 07, 2018, 04:14:07 am »
Hi,

I have a design with several ground/power planes, but only want the PTH pins to connect on some planes, not all of them.
So under "Power Plane Connect Style", I made two rules. One with this query for relief connect:
ispad And ((Layer = 'L2 GND') or (Layer = 'L5 GND'))
And one with this query for no connect:
ispad And OnLayer('L3 PWR')
Hoping that the PTH pins would only connect on L2 & L5. But the result is they don't connect on ANY layers.

Any ideas on how to do this?

Thanks, Ken
 

Offline T3sl4co1l

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 21606
  • Country: us
  • Expert, Analog Electronics, PCB Layout, EMC
    • Seven Transistor Labs
Re: Altium: power plane connect only on some layers?
« Reply #1 on: December 07, 2018, 12:12:44 pm »
Use different nets.

Why would you ever not want to stitch planes together that are the same net?

Tim
Seven Transistor Labs, LLC
Electronic design, from concept to prototype.
Bringing a project to life?  Send me a message!
 

Offline KentxuTopic starter

  • Newbie
  • Posts: 4
  • Country: nz
Re: Altium: power plane connect only on some layers?
« Reply #2 on: December 07, 2018, 07:45:38 pm »
Hi Tim,

The ground planes are all stitched together with vias. This is for the PTH pins on connectors. On our boards which have up to 6 ground planes we're seeing that the ground pins are hard to solder. Too much thermal mass, even with a thermal relief on the connections. So I was hoping there would be an easy way to define that these pins only connect on two layers, not 6. But perhaps that is not possible with Altium, so as you suggest I will have to change the net on some planes under the connector. Oh well...

Thanks, Ken
 

Offline julianhigginson

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 783
  • Country: au
Re: Altium: power plane connect only on some layers?
« Reply #3 on: December 07, 2018, 09:36:01 pm »
Try a thermal relief plane connect style?
 

Offline T3sl4co1l

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 21606
  • Country: us
  • Expert, Analog Electronics, PCB Layout, EMC
    • Seven Transistor Labs
Re: Altium: power plane connect only on some layers?
« Reply #4 on: December 07, 2018, 11:22:12 pm »
Yeah, I'd just set a larger clearance (= longer spokes) and thinner/fewer spokes.  Bonus points for setting different spoke patterns on different layers so it still averages out to, say, an evenly spaced four-spoke or whatever.

There's always the option of converting* the planes to polys, which offers richer design rules and connect options (though you still only have the two or four spokes and 90 or 45 degree options), at the expense of more repour time**.

*A manual process, sadly.
**I've done a few large designs (~1000 parts, 8 layers) and the time taken to calculate plane connectivity is dismal, whole seconds after each object move.  Changing to polys fixed that, but again, at the cost of repouring them (which at least can be done in batch, unlike the plane step).

:-//

Tim
Seven Transistor Labs, LLC
Electronic design, from concept to prototype.
Bringing a project to life?  Send me a message!
 


Share me

Digg  Facebook  SlashDot  Delicious  Technorati  Twitter  Google  Yahoo
Smf