N64 PCB Layers

jleemero · Post by **jleemero** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 5:35 pm

Gordon1 wrote:THERE IS ONLY 2! I even sliced one on an angle. there is only the TOP and BOTTOM.

Exactly what I thought.

timmeh87 · Post by **timmeh87** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 6:12 pm

jleemero wrote:Also, note, there are a heck of a lot of vias not connected to, well, anything!
And I do mean a LOT of these things, just countless.

What do you mean? Are you looking at the ones that go to the ground plane?

marshallh wrote:I'm 99% sure it's 2-layer only. 3-layer PCBs are unpopular in the manufacturing, if they were going to go multilayer, they would've done a 4 layer board with ground and VCC as the middle planes.

QFT.

Also heres a diagram:

Another thing to look for is a through via that has no connection on at least one side of the board. This would suggest that it must be connected to an inner layer, since it has to go somewhere.

jleemero · Post by **jleemero** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 7:18 pm

timmeh87 wrote:
jleemero wrote:Also, note, there are a heck of a lot of vias not connected to, well, anything!
And I do mean a LOT of these things, just countless.
What do you mean? Are you looking at the ones that go to the ground plane?

I mean the ones that go from ground to ground, often many of them just side-by-side, accomplishing nothing at all.

timmeh87 · Post by **timmeh87** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 8:39 pm

They are connecting all the isolated pieces of ground plane together. It weaves its way across both layers, there is no dedicated ground layer.

The groups of holes are for places where lots of current has to pass through.