Altium 14.2, No Ground Net in PCB layout

[PaulTH]

Hello,

First off I would like to say i'm new to these boards and to using Altium. I am using Altium Designer 14.2. I have created a schematic, and started my layout using the PCB import wizard. The board i'm working on is a 2 layer board, which I plan on using the bottom layer for ground.

My problem is that there is no ground net in the nets list. I have use the 'GND Power Port' symbol from the tool bar for all my grounds. I would have thought the GND net would be created along with all of the other nets in my schematic. Is there something I need to do to create a ground net? Also, if i plan on using the bottom layer as a ground plane, is there something special I need to do? Thanks in advance, any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Paul

 

[ftsolutions]

If you aren't going to add internal power plane layers and assign one of them to the GND net, then you'll have to add a plan or poured region or set of traces on the bottom layer and define them as connected to GND. Do you have an account on the Altium forum? In the PCB layout, since you don't have an already defined plane for GND in your 2 layer PCB, that is why it is complaining as very often one sets up the power and ground planes in the PCB stack/layer manager. If you are going to use the bottom layer for more than just GND, you'll have to do it manually by first placing some copper there and then defining the net it is used for.

 

[PaulTH]

Thank you for your reply ftsolutions. I was looking over my design and found a short from a -5V net to a GND net hiding behind a comnponent, which somehow turrned all of the GDN nets into -5v. I plan on adding a poured region on the bottom for the ground plane, which I haven't done before but I have someone with Altium experience helping me through it. I assume the account I use for the on demand license works for the forum also, I will have to check. Thanks again for your help.