Wishlist: Unique zone "Clearance" for edge cuts

[Evan Shultz]

I would like to have a unique clearance around zones to the board edge. Currently, it appears the "Clearance" field applies to all copper elements that the zone meets and the board edge.

For example, consider a zone on a high-voltage net. For 500V clearance, UL 60950 would require 1.6mm spacing and that is the value that I should put into the Clearance field of the shape. I may want 1.6mm from this zone to other copper, but if the product is in a plastic box with a single-sided board it may be possible to run the zone right to the board edge. Pcbnew, however, would still back off the board edge by 1.6mm which reduces my usable routing area.

See the attached project for an example. The upper zone is priority 2 and has 0.508mm clearance while the bottom zone is priority 1 and has 1.016mm clearance. Both zones are backed off from the board edge by their clearance value and the bottom zone, having a lower priority, backs off 1.016mm from the upper zone. And also note that the net class for both zones' nets have 0.7mm spacing.

There are certainly hacks to get around this, but they're hacks. Since board edge and copper-copper are, to me, distinct spacing requirements I think they should be controlled separately.

I could be misusing Pcbnew or misunderstanding. If this can already be handled, please forgive me and point me in the right direction. Thank you.

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Version: 4.0.5 release build
wxWidgets: Version 3.0.2 (debug,wchar_t,compiler with C++ ABI 1009,GCC 5.2.0,wx containers,compatible with 2.8)
Platform: Windows 7 (build 7601, Service Pack 1), 64-bit edition, 64 bit, Little endian, wxMSW
Boost version: 1.57.0
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[Jeff Young (jeyjey)]

This must have been a duplicate as it's already been implemented.

[Evan Shultz (evan-shultz)]

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for the note. Where is this option found? This is probably just one more situation where I'm being daft, but I don't see anywhere in 5.1.0 to make a copper keepin (effectively, even if not a discrete keepin poly) that is inset from the board edge by a pre-defined amount.

Perhaps it's in MASTER and not a released build?

[Jeff Young (jeyjey)]

@Evan, yes, it's in master, not 5.1. (You can look in the Milestone field at the top right of the bug report to find what version it's in.)