Ratlines won't go away

[clarkleach]

I have this board completely laid out; it passes DRC and Net Connectivity tests; yet a few ratlines persist. As can be seen in the attached screenshots, the pads all appear to belong to the same net and the traces all appear connected. Why then do the ratlines still appear?

diptrace-ratline-1.png (156.14 KiB) Viewed 2708 times

diptrace-ratline-2.png (157.53 KiB) Viewed 2708 times

diptrace-ratline-3.png (156.94 KiB) Viewed 2708 times

[Tomg]

"...the pads all appear to belong to the same net and the traces all appear connected. Why then do the ratlines still appear?..."

When a trace touches a pad that belongs to the same net, the DRC considers this a connection and will not flag it as an error. Ratlines are a routing aid and I'm guessing that the ratlines you are having difficulties with are there because some of the traces are not connected to their respective pads' origins (typically, the center of the pad). To remedy this, try the following for each "ratlined" connection...

1) Click on the Edit Traces icon in the Route Toolbar.
2) Right-click on the "ratlined" trace segment nearest its target pad and select Unroute Segment in the pop-up menu. (Do not choose Delete or the net will be deleted, too.)
3) Click on the Route Manual icon in the Route Toolbar, left-click on the target pad's origin (typically its center) and then left-click on the free end of the remaining "ratlined" trace.
4) Right-click in an empty section of the Design Area to return to the default mode.

p.s. Please try to reduce the size of your screenshots. It is very difficult to see all of the problems while having to constantly scroll the screen from left to right.

[clarkleach]

... I'm guessing that the ratlines you are having difficulties with are there because some of the traces are not connected to their respective pad origins (typically, the center of the pad).

It has been my (limited) experience that if a trace is not in fact connected to a pad, the pad will not "light up" with the rest of the net when hovering over the trace. These appear to be connected since they all turn blue...
I will play around a bit and see what I can learn.

p.s. Please try to reduce the size of your screenshots. It is very difficult to see all of the problems while having to constantly scroll the screen from left to right.

Get a bigger screen? -- I will try to shrink them in the future.

-- 16 Mar 2017, 14:20 --

I got rid of two ratlines but the last one is being particularly obstreperous.

diptrace-ratline-4.png (73.16 KiB) Viewed 2699 times

How can I fix it if I don't know where the problem is? Why does it pass the net connectivity test? Where is Novarm tech support?

Some things about this "intuitive" program make no sense and are downright infuriating... editing traces is one of them.

[Tomg]

One thing that may help is to hover your mouse over the affected trace (not a pad). All of the traces on the same net will highlight in blue (default color) and so will the pads that have origin connections. The pads on the same net without origin connections will highlight in red (default color). Let me know what happens.

[clarkleach]

As indicated in the screenshots, the nets are lighting up blue. This tells me that they are connected. The ratlines seem to contradict this...

[Tomg]

Are those two IC pins internally connected in the component editor?

[clarkleach]

Both traces are supposed to connect to the +12V bus and appear to do so. The pins are not internally connected within the component (I don't even know how to do that).

diptrace-ratline-5.png (7.6 KiB) Viewed 2695 times

[Tomg]

Well, that leaves me puzzled. Just out of curiosity, try optimizing the ratlines (F12). If that doesn't do anything, and if you are willing, upload your board file and I'll be happy to look at it for you.

[clarkleach]

I've tried optimizing ratlines several times with no results. Will just the pcb file suffice for you to try?

[Tomg]

"...Will just the pcb file suffice for you to try?...

I'm pretty sure that's all I'll need.