Copper area refuses to pour

Making PCB Layouts, Manual routing, Auto-routing, Copper pouring, Updating from Schematic, Manufacturing Output
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unshaven
Posts: 31
Joined: 25 Dec 2012, 12:12

Copper area refuses to pour

#1 Post by unshaven » 03 May 2021, 13:27

Using Diptrace 4.

I have a 2 sided board.
Bottom is used with a big GND polygon, filling all (with minimum required distance to board outline).
Except, I made a "route keepout" in it, and a small GND island, i.2. an inner polygon, that's connected only at one point to the surrounding polygon, and on the border around it all is a "cage" of vias.

https://i.postimg.cc/sgZVQ64J/no-pour.png

I have done this in a couple of projects and never had problems.

But now the inner polygon, that's inside the keepout polygon (but does ont touch), refuses to pour, commenting that there is a copper or cutout with higher priority.
Apparently, the keepout polygon does not have an adjustable priority.

I have found a few years old threads on here where the problem was alway that there were curouts.
My design has no cutouts at all, so that's not it, unless there can be accidentally created invisible cutouts. If I disable the visibility of everything but cutouts, and toggle the cutouts, I see nothing suspicious.

Any ideas?

Tomg
Expert
Posts: 2028
Joined: 20 Jun 2015, 07:39

Re: Copper area refuses to pour

#2 Post by Tomg » 03 May 2021, 15:11

After some experimentation it looks like forming the entire Route Keepout boundary with a single, closed polyline will inhibit the inner pour. Here's one workaround...
1) Leave a gap in the Route Keepout polyline that is smaller than the minimum clearance setting. Bridging the small polyline gap with a second Route Keepout line is fine but may not be necessary.
2) Enable the removal of internal islands in the outer pour, or give the inner pour higher priority (lower number) than the outer pour. Of course, using the Pour Priority in this fashion might negate the need for the Route Keepout.
3) Repour all copper pours.
Tom

unshaven
Posts: 31
Joined: 25 Dec 2012, 12:12

Re: Copper area refuses to pour

#3 Post by unshaven » 03 May 2021, 20:58

Whoa! Thanks.
Leaving a gap in the polyline thing (instead of a closed polygon) for the keepout worked nicely. Interesting! Can't remember doing that before, I hope I'll remember that next time :D

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