I'm not sure how you got "hung up" out of my comments. Maybe you got
confused - I'm not the OP.
However, I wouldn't focus on using fat traces for avoiding copper
removal. I think that would be the hard way to do it. I much prefer
to create a ground polygon that encompasses the entire board and then
let the layout software figure out the actual shape. In eagle, I put
a ground poly on both the top and bottom with isolate set to 24 mil.
Then I route the board. The only places eagle will take copper is for
isolation and "orphaned" copper areas (not connected to ground).
Look at
http://www.geocities.com/pcbs4less/boardtop.gif for an example
of this. Red and green are copper areas/traces. As you can see, this
design keeps much more copper than one using just fat traces. It
seems much cleaner and makes for a quieter board, noise-wise, because
of the extensive ground areas.
Besides, thin traces just look more professional to me :)
Phil
--- In
Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, Mycroft2152 <mycroft2152@y...>
wrote:
> Hi Phil,
>
> Don't be hung up on very thin traces. Having wide
> traces means less copper to etch away. Only use the
> thinnest to get the circuit laid out.
>
> You my want to post a photo of the pcb or else the
> layout for comments.
>
> Myc