Electronic – PCB Layout Issue

boardpcb

My PCB has drill holes in it as it needs to be screwed onto a case. Since some of the components too close to the screws were shorting, I moved components around to solve the problem.

This resulted in one airwire where one side of the resistor which was to be connected to ground became unconnected affecting the functionality of the LED on my board.

To fix this problem I connected that one airwire to ground and checked for any other errors and airwires. Finiding none and passing the 4pcb design rule check online I went ahead and got a few hundred boards manufactured.

Now after assembling them I see that this small change screwed up the functionality of the entire board. I am baffled and confused as to how a small change of connecting the resistor airwire to the nearest ground via could cause this?

Any suggestions on why this could be happening and how I could solve this would be helpful.

Thanks

Best Answer

You could try creating a "Visual Diff" of your (before and after) design and gerber files. See if anything "jumps out" at you as "the problem." This article describes how to do it.

Also, my personal experience has been that the circumstances where you can confidently get away with going straight to manufacture after a change to a PCB design are rare. For me, it's almost always worthwhile to spend the $20 and wait the extra couple of weeks to have a prototype manufactured before going to a production quantity.