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How to Balance PCB Copper

Printed circuit boards (PCBs) consist of insulating substrates upon which tiny copper tracks and electrical components are placed. The thickness value of a copper track is often expressed in copper weight. A copper weight of one-quarter oz. corresponds to a thickness of .00036 inch. Modern-day PCBs are often double-sided; when this is the case, similar thicknesses and amounts of copper should be placed on each side. This process is known as copper weight balancing.

Things You'll Need

CAD software

Instructions

- 1
  Create a new CAD project. Create three CAD layers. By convention, layer 0 is the board outline. Draw the board outline in layer 0.
- 2
  Draw the copper tracks of the front side of the PCB and place them in CAD layer 1. Calculate the area of copper that is taken up on the front side of the PCB. This can be done by multiplying track width by track length for each track.
- 3
  Draw the copper tracks on the back side of the PCB and place them in CAD layer 2. To balance the copper, try to keep the track area on the back side similar to the track area on the front side. When sending the CAD design to the manufacturer, specify the same copper weight for both sides of the board.

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