Is this a good pcb design practically speaking?

I designed this PCB in Diptrace and now i am going to etch it at home. This is my first PCB design. Can someone please tell me if this is a good and practical design?

This is a design of a water level indicator based on a single NOT gate IC (HEF 4049).

UPDATE:
I redid the layout. Increased the trace width and attached the power to the IC.
Please tell me if this is ok?
Also please tell me is it must to have a power plane?

UPDATE:

1) i went back to original layout and beefed up the tracks
2) Made the IC pads bigger.
3) Was able to reconfigure the layout to connect power without jumpers (this took up most of the time).
4) Did as Verence suggested and put text on the copper layer. Version number, date and name.
5) And finally added the positive for the supply voltage.

UPDATE:

Moved track from pin 7 of IC away from pin 8.

Comments

[Jayefuu]

RE the PCB layout, I'd double or triple the track size if I were you, you have loads of space. The thermal spokes on B1 look pretty skinny too.

[Jayefuu]

Oh and I don't see any positive supply to your IC.

[verence]

+1 to what Jayefuu said:
- use wider tracks,
- connect Pin1 of the IC with Vcc

Some other things:
- a GND pin on J1 might be nice as you have to route the ground potential to your sensor part (maybe Vcc as well)

- add some text to the bottom copper layer (if you don't want to pay for a screen layer): project name, version, date, your name, copyright etc. Make sure the text is mirrored if it goes to any bottom layer.

- B1 is for the supply voltage, right? add some indicator for the polarity (and maybe voltage range) Or you might like to add a protective diode.

- add some holes for easy mounting of the pcb later

- are the resistors in the 0.1 inch grid?

[Shariq92]

Thanks for the replies. I will do what you recommended and update. And i am having problem with connecting pin 1 to vcc/positive battery terminal. Also sorry, i am using Ares and not Diptrace.
I am going to etch at home using toner transfer so no paying for screen layer (whatever that is :-) ).
The polarity for the battery B1 is on the top silk.
The grid is 0.1 inch.

[Shariq92]

Thanks for the advice. I will increase the track size as you recommended. Ares is not letting me attach pin 1 to positive terminal of battery. I will update once i am done.

[Shariq92]

Is this good now?

[Jayefuu]

You didn't need to wire the grounds like that. I'd have kept the ground plane, it's simpler and all of the pins that needed to be connected were.

I'd would:

1) go back to your original, beef up the tracks (as you did)
2) You have loads of space around all your pins, make your pads bigger and oval on your IC. They're too skinny and will break when you drill or solder them.
3) Add the jumper that framistan suggests. The red and white wire he's drawn on his diagram that goes from pin one of the IC to the +v supply.
4) Do as Verence suggests and put text on the copper layer. Version number, date, name and a + for your positive supply connection!

[Shariq92]

Could you please check it again? I am very grateful for all of this help

[Shariq92]

Is a protective diode good practice? I was going to use a 9 volt battery using the 9volt battery connector so that the battery cannot be connected wrongly.

[Jayefuu]

Yup, that's much better. You might want to move the track attached to pin 7 away from pin 8, you have plenty of space.

[Shariq92]

Done. I will upload the pics of the final pcb i make soon. Thank you very much for all the help.

[mpilchfamily]

The wider traces are great but you can compensate for the thinner traces by using a board with thicker copper cladding.

I'm not familiar with diptrace but i'm sure it is able to check for errors, such as traces being to close and whatnot. Find that and run it cause it looks like the trace from D4 is too close to R11's lower contacts. You may have allot of traces that are too close together.

You may need to play around with the overall layout till you find one that is easier to rout all the traces with.

[framistan]

Because this is a SINGLE SIDED board with traces on one side only, you may
not be able to run that plus wire directly to the proper IC pin. this is because it
will cross over and connect to undesired terminals. You may have to go way
around the side of the board and then down to the IC plus pin. It appears you
need to connect plus and minus to a few things (the IC and the LED's. I have
used a paint program to roughly show the changes . The J1 and J2 are plain
wire jumpers you will have to add to the circuit board when you build it. It is preferable if your design can avoid using wire jumpers, but sometimes it
cannot be avoided on a single sided circuit board design.

[Shariq92]

I was able to get the layout to work without the jumpers. Thanks for helping out.