Sorry if this is an obvious question, but I have not found an obvious answer.

Suppose I would like to design a circuit board where for example I would like part of a voltage net to be routed with a larger trace, like .03 or .05, but the rest of it could have smaller traces, like .008 or the like. In particular the board will have a power buss going from an power input connector, that I would like the larger traces to go to lets say several 3 pin servo connectors. Likewise for the ground connections and in some case the power coming off of a voltage regulator to some external connections.

On a couple of previous boards I played with, I did this manually. I would go through and hand route the power buses and would update the trace widths, or made sure that there was a copper pour that looked big enough in those areas...

I was wondering before I do it this manual way on the new board Is there an easier way to do this. Something like: Define two nets: GroundA and GroundB with different Net Classes and then some way to say that these two nets are one in the same?

Thanks
Kurt

Hi Kurt,

I don't know easier way, but you can use two different nets with different properties while designing a board and connect these nets to single one before producing manufacturing files.

Thanks,

I thought about setting it up that way, running the auto-router and the like and then merging the nets, but I figured that it would probably end up with some/lots of duplicated etch. That is when connecting up some of the components that can be connected with smaller etch, it would run etch all the way to the nearest other component that can take smaller etch instead of connecting on the main power etches... So for now will continue with my previous way.

Thanks again
Kurt

If you use auto-router, you can auto-route wide net first, then merge wide and narrow grounds and lock existing routing. After that, auto-route remaining traces.