Homebrew PCBs

Adam,

This gets at an issue I was wondering about -- I was aware of designs that have a power plane on one side and ground plane on the other, and was not sure what the advantage would be, though I suspected it might involve some capacitance. I wondered whether that capacitance was always a positive phenomenon, or could ever be negative.

But for this particular board, the issue is moot -- there are three different voltages on the board, and the layout would prevent any of them from filling much of a zone. Thus I was thinking about a ground plane on top ... but wondered if there were any possible negative effects of doing so.

Thanks for the input -- it helps to relieve a little of my woeful ignorance!

--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, Adam Shea <shea0097@...> wrote:
>
> Really depends on what you're doing.  For my power converter stuff I do
> a power plane on one side and ground plane on the other as it acts as a
> nice capacitor to short out ~100MHz kind of stuff.
> 
> --Adam.
> 
> On 04/06/11 20:52, Terry wrote:
> > Generally speaking, the more ground plane -- top and bottom -- the better.  The last step in most of my designs is to do a polygon fill tied to GND on both sides of the board.
> > 
> > --- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, "Andrew" <a_wake@> wrote:
> >>
> >> I am closing in on designing a board that is a mix of SMD and through hole parts. I am using a zone on the bottom side to provide a ground plane; I wondered about adding a zone to the top as well. If I did a top zone, is there any reason I can't make it a ground plane as well?
> >>
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