Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Homebrew PCBs

At some point in our discusssions on Eagle this week, and this
probably applies to other CAD programs as well, not routing power and
grounds was mentioned. On several boards, I've not used the supply
device/symbol to tie the power connections together, as it adds
considerably to the complexity of routing. I've just added solder pad
components to power connection points, and I've run multiple power
wires to the board, using the supply signal/device only once, with
solpads added as needed at both the supply and supplied component
networks.

I could obviously do the same thing with signal grounds, but there
would be several orders of magnitude more complexity in wiring by
doing that.

I've done some boards where the last step was adding the grounds to
the schematic, after all components were added, making it easier to
route the board manually as I added components, not having to deal
with gnd in the ratsnest until the end.

Unless I missed something, I think I read in one of the recent posts
that grounds don't have to be routed??? They do have to be connected
on the schematic to, say, a resistor, capacitor, etc. otherwise there
will be an electrical rules check error for an unconnected pin.

Can someone clarify this?

Thanks,
Ted