Cannot get antenna polygon to fill

John Bachman wrote on Mon, 22 March 2010 16:21

I followed the advice of couple of posters who suggested that a way to

 

do a pc copper antenna is to create a footprint package to provide the

 

schematic connections and then put a polygon around the footprint and

fill it with copper.

It sounds like you added the polygon to the board instead of making it part

of the package.  If it were part of the package you can put the two pads

wherever you want and they will connect.  However, you'll get massive DRC

errors.

--

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On 3/22/2010 1:21 PM, John Bachman wrote:

I followed the advice of couple of posters who suggested that a way to

do a pc copper antenna is to create a footprint package to provide the

schematic connections and then put a polygon around the footprint and

fill it with copper.

 

This antenna is a folded F that operates at 2.4 Ghz. Consequently it has

two connections, antenna and ground. I named the polygon ANTENNA which

is also the name of the net that connects to it. The other connection is

ground. Eagle sees these two connections as being an error since it is

just copper between them but that is what the design calls for.

 

As a consequence the antenna polygon will not fill. At least I think

that is why it will not fill. However, I did remove the ground

connection and it still will not fill.

 

Any ideas?

you have to use the RATSNEST command to fill the polygon. see Help

RATSNEST. if it still won't fill then it might overlap itself or be part

of the isolate setting.

i think you can name your pins ANT@1 and ANT@2 and they will be allowd

on the same net. then just connect one to the feed and one to ground in

schematic and you might fool it to get rid of DRC error. in the end if

the copper is like you want it the DRC doesn't matter, if you use v5 you

can "approve" the violation and it will stop reporting it.

"John Bachman" <john.bachman@anatekcorp.com> wrote in message

news:ho8jf9$adu$1@cheetah.cadsoft.de...

I followed the advice of couple of posters who suggested that a way to

do a pc copper antenna is to create a footprint package to provide the

schematic connections and then put a polygon around the footprint and

fill it with copper.

 

This antenna is a folded F that operates at 2.4 Ghz.  Consequently it

has two connections, antenna and ground.  I named the polygon ANTENNA

which is also the name of the net that connects to it.  The other

connection is ground.  Eagle sees these two connections as being an

error since it is just copper between them but that is what the design

calls for.

 

As a consequence the antenna polygon will not fill.  At least I think

that is why it will not fill.  However, I did remove the ground

connection and it still will not fill.

 

Any ideas?

--

John Bachman, W1JGB

AnaTek Corporation

Hi John

You should be able to achieve what you desire. The work around (if you would

call it that ) is to name the 'net' to the feedpoint of the antenna GND  and

the antenna polygon GND also. So eagle should see no issues.

Why it will not fill is mysterious. If the SMD pads are inside the polygon

and both the net and the poly names are spelt the same the poly should fill.

Ensure the pour for the polygon is set to Solid as Hatch with a large

spacing may make the polygon appear unfilled.

You may have polygon ratsnest turned off. In the command line type SET POLY

ON

Warren

On 3/22/2010 6:38 PM, Warren Brayshaw wrote:

"John Bachman"<john.bachman@anatekcorp.com>  wrote in message

news:ho8jf9$adu$1@cheetah.cadsoft.de...

I followed the advice of couple of posters who suggested that a way to

do a pc copper antenna is to create a footprint package to provide the

schematic connections and then put a polygon around the footprint and

fill it with copper.

 

This antenna is a folded F that operates at 2.4 Ghz.  Consequently it

has two connections, antenna and ground.  I named the polygon ANTENNA

which is also the name of the net that connects to it.  The other

connection is ground.  Eagle sees these two connections as being an

error since it is just copper between them but that is what the design

calls for.

 

As a consequence the antenna polygon will not fill.  At least I think

that is why it will not fill.  However, I did remove the ground

connection and it still will not fill.

 

Any ideas?

--

John Bachman, W1JGB

AnaTek Corporation

 

Hi John

 

You should be able to achieve what you desire. The work around (if you would

call it that ) is to name the 'net' to the feedpoint of the antenna GND  and

the antenna polygon GND also. So eagle should see no issues.

Why it will not fill is mysterious. If the SMD pads are inside the polygon

and both the net and the poly names are spelt the same the poly should fill.

Ensure the pour for the polygon is set to Solid as Hatch with a large

spacing may make the polygon appear unfilled.

 

You may have polygon ratsnest turned off. In the command line type SET POLY

ON

 

Warren

 

 

I used this method, the others would probably have worked also but this

one was easiest to implement so I gave it a try and it worked just fine.

Thanks all.

John

--

John Bachman, W1JGB

AnaTek Corporation