Textured PCB?

[Big Monk]

Anyone know how this textured surface is being achieved?

 

[Smrtokvitek]

This is just a copper pour in a mesh pattern. You can change it in the setting of the pour.

 

[Robert]

Copper pour fill style.

Play around with the parameters to get different spacing/density.

 

[Big Monk]

I figured it was pretty simple.

Is there any disadvantage to filling like this? It certainly looks cool but as far as the quality of the ground pour?

 

[jessenator]

I've heard impedance and/or signal noise happens— depending on the intended application— with a non-solid pour, but I'd love to be educated on this as well.

 

[Big Monk]

I've heard impedance and/or signal noise happens— depending on the intended application— with a non-solid pour, but I'd love to be educated on this as well.

That’s my uneducated concern: Looks cool as shit bit if I’m negating the effect of a solid pour then it would be not worth it.

 

[jwin615]

It's generally used for boards that are bent/flexed iirc.
I doubt there's much concern of noise in the frequencies we live in though. There are some quidelines/concerns for routing over it re inductance...

 

[cdwillis]

I've seen a similar type of textured pour on MXR pedals I've taken apart. I have a Dyna Comp on the workbench with that type of ground pour and was kinda wondering the same thing.

 

[Smrtokvitek]

My understanding is it was developed to mitigate the effect of temperature expansion of different materials (copper and baseboard). It is a thing of the past I guess. You will probably not be designing a guitar effect pedal that would benefit from it.

I have used this approach also for visual effects. If you put route keepout (shape of your preference) on your board you will get this mask dip effect. I made markers around the knob with it using a PCB front panel. It was not very pronounced but a nice textural thing nevertheless.

 

[Bricksnbeatles]

VFE has a webbed ground pour, and Peter seems meticulously obsessive about stuff like that— doubt he’d do that if it had a negative impact considering he goes overboard on the engineering of everything else

 

[Robert]

I used a crosshatch ground pour for a few months but the texture made the silkscreen hard to read in some cases, so I stopped.

 

[jimilee]

Toan, it’s all about the Toan.

 

[benny_profane]

Does your design need to consider trace impedance, EMF radiation, differential signaling, and return paths? Otherwise don’t worry about it. Just don’t have isolated copper pours hanging out alone.

 

[jessenator]

Toan, it’s all about the Toan.

OH that's the secret then!

Guys, guys, guys, we've got it. It's not about the diodes at all! It's all about dat waffle!