Great chunk of unwanted ground plane around PCB Design in Sprint Layout 6!

[Chris56000]

Can someone look at this RLC Meter Board for me and explain why there's great chunks of unwanted copper outside the wanted PCB Area in Sprint Layout 6 please? I want the internal (to the outline, not an internal layer) top ground plane on the C1 (top) layer but without these unwanted chunks!

Chris Williams

[thm_w]

Its just fill in unused areas so they don't have to etch away additional copper. Maybe reduce warping or save a few cents.

I'm sure you can figure out how to crop the unused areas.

https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/85633/what-is-copper-thieving-and-why-use-it
https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/621131/ground-pours-or-thieving-for-filling-unused-space-on-pcb-signal-layers

[Kean]

Never used Sprint Layout, but I've seen something similar happen in Eagle and Altium if the board outline is not properly defined, or has a tiny break in it.
You may also be able to modify the ground plane polygon to make it smaller, so it is within the outline clearance.
In any case, as long as you provide the correct outline to the manufacturer, they should correctly trim anything outside it.  But they may also reject it.