SparkFun Forums

[Chupa]

I make my own PCBs to save money when i can, and it being somewhat difficult or impossible to make double sided ones i stick with single sided. Some of my designs being complicated the auto router cant always be 100% successful. Is there a way to make the auto router bring air wires to a through hole pad on both sides of the connection so you can just solder on a jumper? If not i think that would be a pretty useful function for them to add in the future...

[daemondust]

What about running the autorouter with the bottom layer disabled so it routes as much as possible on the top and then running it with both layers active?

You could then use the bottom layer as a guide for where to place jumpers.

[Chupa]

And just use the vias as through hole pads. great idea! thanks!

[daemondust]

Exactly.

You might be able to tweak it further by changing the "layer costs" for the bottom layer in the "busses", "routes" and four "optimize" tabs of the autorouter. By doing that I was able to get down to just two traces on the bottom on one of my more complicated SMD designs.

I think it's going to be a lot of trial and error to find a sweet spot, but it shouldn't be hard to get passable results.