Tell the autorouter to ignore or skip GND.

I guess my question really is: It would be great if there were an auto-router setting to automatically make every GND connection for every component a VIA to the ground plane. Then the auto-router could ignore running GND traces everywhere. I just tried doing it manually, and there were just too many ground points to create vias to the ground plane.  And not really knowing if that would work when the board was produced.

"...an auto-router setting to automatically make every GND connection for every component a VIA to the ground plane." Not a good idea because that could create as many problems as it solves. For example Kelvin connections to the ground side of a low side current sense resistor or to the Kelvin Source connection of a low side SiCFET or GANFET would have to be manually rerouted. A more useful option would be to able to flag each ground pin in the schematic (**not** the library symbol or footprint because that would be too proscriptive) to indicate that it is to be connected to a ground plane using a via and not a track. Then get the Autorouter to recognise the flag. This could equally well be applied to the power pins to via to a power plane. This however would probably work best in a 4 or more layer board (which I'm guessing you are working on) with one or more internal layers set to ground (and/or power) plane. Getting it to work for example on a 2 layer board with a manually applied ground copper area on the bottom layer would probably be a nightmare. All that said however, you have to understand that to get a good routing result from any autorouter requires a great deal of experience in PCB layout. If "there were just too many ground points to create vias to the ground plane" then it sounds like it's a complex board (it's private so only you can see it) and therefore you should probably be routing it manually rather than relying on an autorouter to make a total SI and PI mess of it for you. You could try changing the **Category** of this post to **Feature Request**. :)

> A more useful option would be to able to flag each ground pin in the schematic (not the library symbol or footprint because that would be too proscriptive) to indicate that it is to be connected to a ground plane using a via and not a track. Then get the Autorouter to recognise the flag. Yes, that's a much better way to express what I was trying to request.  Thanks. I tried manual routing and it made my head explode.

<br> <br> Well it's seven months later and I've become much more proficient with EasyEDA. My original suggestion was a bit short-sighted and now I understand much better how things work. I did take the time to drop GND vias for every component that needed one (didn't really take that long!), and then, as you suggested, tell the auto-router to ignore GND. Works perfectly with having to "lock/unlock" each via as I move parts around the board. I'm now working on a 4-layer board and do the same thing with the power plane and components that need +5v. So much easier! And for my latest project, I'm using a TI TPS65130 power supply chip that has a dozen extra components in a specific layout configuration which I routed manually (see below). And I just tell the AR to ignore all those routes as well, and it all just works. The only thing I would now like to see, is after the AR has run on the rest of the board, but I then want to move more things around some more, I can select "Unroute All" but that unroutes my hand-routed nets as well -- not good!  So what I do now to unroute just the autorouted nets is to start the AR then instantly stop it -- that removes all the non-ignored routes and leaves the ignored nets in place.   I'd like to see a "Unroute All Except Ignored" which would do what I want without the two-step trick to start/stop the AR. I'm also getting much, much better at hand routing and fixing the odd things the AR does. Thanks <br> 

@h.eskin, Thanks for posting back. It's interesting to read how people's ways of working evolve as they get the hang of the tool. I'm not a fan of autorouters, even high end ones because there are so many constraints in a complex board that an autorouter can trash. I used to be completely against them but there are a few occasions where I've got good results with them but you have to have lot of experience with PCB layout and manual routing to get the manual ( i.e. important) routes laid out first then run the autorouter a few times to see how well it gets on finishing stuff off.

@h.eskin Hi there! I am running into a similar issue and am wondering if you could explain step by step how to add in the ground vias for this. I have been having so much trouble trying to get my ground pins on the top layer to my ground plane on the bottom layer. Thank you!!!!

@bplusplus, If you are wanting to add multiple vias for thermal or electrical impedance reduction then these might help: [https://easyeda.com/forum/topic/How-to-avoid-DRC-errors-when-connecting-to-PCB-Footprints-a-k-a-PCB-Libs-90bf944fe3644b21a7d27a9e9d8df8d6](https://easyeda.com/forum/topic/How-to-avoid-DRC-errors-when-connecting-to-PCB-Footprints-a-k-a-PCB-Libs-90bf944fe3644b21a7d27a9e9d8df8d6)<br> <br> [https://easyeda.com/forum/topic/How-to-place-multiple-vias-in-a-PCB-footprint-a34cf68d58414138898a56de60abd8c1](https://easyeda.com/forum/topic/How-to-place-multiple-vias-in-a-PCB-footprint-a34cf68d58414138898a56de60abd8c1)<br> <br> [https://u.easyeda.com/forum/topic/How-to-remove-the-exposed-copper-close-the-solder-maks-aperture-in-a-through-hole-pad-5673aa46a6a34172ae2ad9ade57aaa87](https://u.easyeda.com/forum/topic/How-to-remove-the-exposed-copper-close-the-solder-maks-aperture-in-a-through-hole-pad-5673aa46a6a34172ae2ad9ade57aaa87)<br> <br>

@h.eskin Once you do the manual routing, lock the traces/via (you can do this via Edit > Find Similar Objects... Then Unroute All can be used, and it will leave your manually routed traces alone!