I'm creating an adapter which hosts two connector types and simply routes two connections from one connector into the other.
- Only two traces/connections are used; Vcc (about 6v) and GND
- Operating current is up to 1A max
- Power is DC only, no signals
So my design uses only one "trace", which is for Vcc, while the ground simply uses the entire ground plane, which fills everything on the PCB other than the Vcc trace, as the return path. Both connectors have pins mounted to the ground plane, so it seems to me like it'll be fine (if not best) to just use the ground plane as the return path instead of creating a trace for it which connects to the ground plane at some point anyway. I've never seen a board use a ground plane as the "primary" return path (with no dedicated trace), though, and I'd like to confirm that this isn't some soft of bad design practice.