Electronics > Manufacturing & Assembly
Using PCB Fill Zones For Power
MxWinters:
Hi everyone, I have a quick question, I am designing a PCB to send off to JLCPCB to get made for a project, I have finished the schematic and PCB designs and its ready to send off. Before I do though, can I ask if using the infill zones to send power to various components is acceptable? For example in my design the VIn pin on the power inlet header is connected to the top infill zone (red circle) and the IC's VCC pins are the connected to that top infill zone to get power. The chip's GND pin are then connected to the bottom infill zone (black circles). KiCad hasn't thown up any errors by me doing this and the design rule checker comes back with no errors or warnings but I was just wondering if it is good engineering practice to use the infill zones for power? I'm only drawing about 250mA peak at 5 volt through the infill zones so current shouldn't be an issue.
Hopefully the attached images shows what I mean.
Thanks for your time, Stay Safe
Morgan
ataradov:
I would not do that. It is confusing and also does not make a lot of sense.
Use regular traces and flood fill the reset with the ground.
Having power planes is a common practice, but only on multi-layer boards with dedicated power layers.
jmw:
I've done top pour = VCC, bottom pour = GND on 2 layer boards. Sometimes you want VCC everywhere, and it gives you maybe a few dozen pF between VCC and ground depending on the board size. There's no rule that says both sides have to be flooded with ground.
Mangozac:
--- Quote from: jmw on June 23, 2021, 11:39:57 pm ---it gives you maybe a few dozen pF between VCC and ground depending on the board size.
--- End quote ---
Which has no real benefit in typical applications.
--- Quote from: jmw on June 23, 2021, 11:39:57 pm ---There's no rule that says both sides have to be flooded with ground.
--- End quote ---
There's not, but I personally still wouldn't do it unless there was a specific need. Considering that it's standard practice to connect pours to GND all you're going to achieve is creating confusion.
MarkR42:
Absolutely yes you can and on multiple layer boards (4 or more) using a whole plane for power and another plane for ground is very common, then you usually don't need any power traces (for pth parts) at all.
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