[sdiy] Ground planes

[Tom Wiltshire]

Damian,

Pads which are connected to the ground plane are connected by thin  
tracks, called 'thermals'. The reason being that if they were simply  
a part of the ground plane not covered by soldermask, the groundplane  
would act as too much of a heatsink to be able to do a decent job of  
soldering to the pad. David is complaining that even with the thin  
traces, the groundplane makes soldering much harder.

T.

On 30 Mar 2010, at 12:14, cheater cheater wrote:

> Hi David,
>
>> with "thermals", it's a
>> pain to solder pads connected to a ground plane.
>
> what do you mean?
>
> Thanks
> D.
>
> On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 12:44, David Ingebretsen  
> <dingebre at 3dphysics.net> wrote:
>> Is there any value to adding a ground plane fill to a PCB for the  
>> typical
>> types of circuits for audio module? How about one on both sides of  
>> a two
>> sided PCB? Is there any difference in putting it on the top versus  
>> bottom?
>>
>> I'm getting ready to send a board off to be made. It's easy to add  
>> it, but
>> I'm not sure the theory behind it other than even with "thermals",  
>> it's a
>> pain to solder pads connected to a ground plane.
>>
>> I've noticed some PCB's I've purchased have them, but many don't  
>> and I
>> haven't heard any artifacts either way.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> David
>>
>> David M. Ingebretsen M.S., M.E.
>> Collision Forensics & Engineering, Inc.
>> 2469 East Fort Union Blvd. STE 114
>> Salt Lake City, UT 84121
>> www.CFandE.com
>>
>> 801 733-5458 Office
>> 801 842-5451 Cell
>>
>> dingebre at CFandE.com
>> dingebre at 3dphysics.net
>>
>>
>>
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