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I am making a PCB for my robots in Altium Designer software. It is my first big PCB project and I want someone with more experience to tell me if everything is all right with my design.

I am writting this because at first looks everything looks okay, but when I push it through DRC it gives me plenty of errors regarding clearence constraints. I don't know if I can simply ignore them and move on or if I did something bad. Every trace seems to have proper spacing.

I am getting DRC messages like:

Clearance Constraint:
(Collision < 0.1mm) Pad
5V-1(8.509mm,39.624mm) on Top Layer

Link to PCB

Board images:

Top: enter image description here

Bottom: enter image description here

Edit: All of the errors came from undefined layer stack: https://www.altium.com/documentation/knowledge-base/altium-designer/clearance-constrain-between-polyregion-on-multilayer-and-pad-on-top-layer

Now I am getting no errors. Sorry for inconveniences, I am closing the topic.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Apparently one needs an account to view your project. Can you share Gerber files to view and a picture of your schematic? \$\endgroup\$
    – ErnestoG
    Sep 19, 2022 at 11:49
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    \$\begingroup\$ Also the precise errors you are seeing. You should not have any DRC errors. \$\endgroup\$
    – Spehro Pefhany
    Sep 19, 2022 at 12:29
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    \$\begingroup\$ Even if one didn't need an account, can you make the question standalone here? \$\endgroup\$
    – Scott Seidman
    Sep 19, 2022 at 12:34
  • \$\begingroup\$ You may use windows functions to get a screenshot of Altium displays. The screenshots may be included to the question just like other images. \$\endgroup\$
    – Uwe
    Sep 19, 2022 at 12:55
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    \$\begingroup\$ Assuming bottom side is ground, all traces there really cut it up to nothing. You probably need a four layer board if you can’t move everything but short tracks to top side. What’s your top pour? \$\endgroup\$
    – winny
    Sep 20, 2022 at 20:13

1 Answer 1

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Yeah, violating clearance constraints are bad. You need to make sure the rules are right (press D then R in the pcb and it will take you to the design rules. OR you can right-click on the offending net or object and click on violations, and it will take you to the rule. If it's a copper clearance constraint, then what it's telling you is there are two nets attached to copper that are closer than 4mil apart. This could happen for a variety of reasons.

It looks to me like you may have nets that are connected together in the schematic. Make sure you compile your schematic, and clear out all the errors on the schematic before moving on to the PCB. You need to setup proper rules in the PCB based on whichever board manufacturer you will use. Usually 5mil minimum for traces, and 5 or 7 mil for clearance is good, unless you have smaller pitch pads on your footprints.

Also, all your traces are the same size, if you have any power traces that carry more than 1A, you should widen the trace or put in a polygon pour or polygon.

Another thing is it appears like you don't have a continuous ground plane, when starting out it would be a good idea to maintain a continuous ground plane to prevent common mode noise issues from resistance in the copper ground plane.

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