Creating Circuit Boards with KiCad 6

[@bendupont9219]

Thank you for this tutorial! In my opinion one of the best KiCad tutorials on this platform.

[@shabaz_]

Hi Ben, Thanks for the nice feedback!

[@mbrombert]

Thanks for this. Easily the best video out there on KiCad because its so calming and straight to the point.

[@shabaz_]

Hi Robert, thanks!

[@erikisberg3886]

Hi, thanks! I have been making layouts for some decades starting with Mc Cad and Generic cad way back. Remember the pen plotters... Never used KiCad, very good intro to the most important things to get up and running quickly. My impression is that KiCad seems easier to get into and its more intuitive than the older systems. For microwave cards we had to use Autocad and a Gerber generator. Drawing functions in KiCad seems good enough for much RF work as well.

[@shabaz_]

Hi Erik, By coincidence, I used Generic CADD for a while too! It was very good for a DOS product.

[@erikisberg3886]

@@shabaz_ I preferred it to Autocad at the time, the 2 letters keyboard commands worked really nice. Used it for microwave layouts etc. This was at a time when much layout work was still done with the red film and photographically reduced to correct size. Used it parameterised with DOS Turrbo pascal to generate computed patterns via macro files among other things. Just being able to scale something independently in X and Y was a tremendous advantage back then...

[@mayROBO]

It waas just perfect on what I was looking for. Short and quick start guide yet covered 80% of things I will ever use. Thank you so much.

[@sunilmathew2914]

The best KiCad tutorial I've found so far. Thank you!

[@stevesm2010]

Great video. I recently updated from KiCad v5 and it helped me to refresh. Cheers!

[@shabaz_]

Hi Steve, thanks!

[@juobuz6771]

Finaly a Kicad video with version 6

[@gerokatseros]

Beautiful tutorial my friend ... I am a total beginner but now i can make my own pcbs!!! Thank you alot

[@Allen.Morrison]

Thank you for the excellent video. Helped me transition from Altium back to KiCAD for a complex project that was started in KiCAD before my arrival.

[@hopelessnerd6677]

Bravo! Very helpful video. It's good to watch other people do things, even if you think you've seen it all, because there are some little ideas that pop up that you probably hadn't thought of that can save no end of time. No point in re-inventing the wheel.

[@lamarched21]

Thank you very much. This helped a lot.

[@smahax]

Excellent! thank you so much

[@okoeroo]

Excellent walkthrough

[@miqueles5783]

This video is a very nice walk through of the new version of KiCad, thank you.

[@habibarrasyid8186]

What a very comprehensive tutorial. Thank you very much!

[@shabaz_]

Hi Habib, thanks!

[@j_sudi]

Very helpful video. Thank you !

[@hansvanderlinden6545]

Thanks , this was the kind of video I was looking for; just to see the manual proces for routing. I wil check out FreeRouting for it's abilities for autorouting a Kicad design. And decide after that.

[@electron7373]

Wow - great tutorial! All the really useful stuff, step by step. Excellent work Shabaz!

[@shabaz_]

Thanks for the comments!

[@bryansiepert9222]

This is _exactly_ the tutorial I needed, thank you SO much! You're a gentleman and a scholar!

[@shabaz_]

Hi Bryan, thanks!

[@zyghom]

I am about to move from Easyeda to KiCad and this tutorial is exactly what I was looking for - thanks a lot!

[@BenWHeller]

Thank you for taking the time to produce such a well-structured and informative tutorial. It was invaluable in helping me quickly get up to speed with the excellent KiCAD, right through to the process of submitting a board.

[@shabaz_]

Hi Ben, That's awesome, glad to hear it's going well! Always fun waiting for the PCBs to arrive : ) Thanks for the kind comments.

[@shaun2072]

Thankyou that was great. Have been using a very old version of Altium for a long time and looking to move. V6 looks great and worth the effort to learn.

[@normanheck9593]

thank you! exactly what i needed to get started with kicad 🙂

[@nigozeroichi2501]

I'm totally new to Kicad and making PCBs, your tutorial was much easier to understand and the tip for footprints when adding components to the schematic then duplicating it when there's others was cool,

[@PeteDubler]

Outstanding job.

[@lynwilliams3800]

A video on file manipulation sure would be useful. How to move a project from one pc to another, make a project portable on a thumb drive, How to import pieces of schematics from a different project into another project, and finally how to move library parts from pc to pc. Your work on the V6 tutorial video was just spectacular...can't say enough good things about it. That style and this topic...wishful thinking...

[@shabaz_]

Feedback taken on board, I'll see what I can do! You're right, these topics would be great to address in a video.

[@halisidrysdale]

this is golden: you've got a wonderful presentation pace.

[@aaamarco6726]

good evening, a courtesy, in KiCad I did not find the library with relative footprints for the arduino mega2560 board, I tried to search the net but I did not find anything, can you help me with some address where you can download it? Thank you

[@circuiteimprimate7486]

Thank you for this tutorial, which contains a lot of useful tips! I have one suggestion. I've picked videos from your channel at random and I've seen that, besides this one, all of them have comments turned off. Please do not disable comments. People share their point of view and ideas easier via comments. And, of course, someone might want to thank you for want you share with us.

[@shabaz_]

Thanks for the feedback! For all the videos I almost always write a blog post too, at element14.com, and put the link in the description for anyone to write more detailed comments/contributions there, criticisms and all since I don't delete, and anyone can place files and screenshots/diagrams/photos if they wish at that link, so for that reason I disabled comments on KZbin so that there would be a single location for that. However it's a good point, and not everyone will want to browse to another website simply to make a comment, so I'll enable comments on more videos going forward.

[@mekuranda]

@@shabaz_ I just recently found your channel - subbed and binge watched a few hours of your content - Great interest for me - and I passed on links to some friends. Well, to comment on the element 14 Blog area - it is not very intuitive and I could not find things as easily as on YT - for example searching using keyword KiCad results in versions and blogs from version 3 to 6 and no way to sort via dates or contributors that I could find.

[@shabaz_]

@@mekuranda Hi Peter thanks for the feedback! I just tried it, and you're right, it's not easy to find a convenient list of content related to recent KiCad, nor just content per individual, on the element14 site. I'll ask if they plan to improve that, meanwhile I'll check both YT and the element14 site for comments. Thanks for letting me know about the issue!

[@jorgeferreira6727]

When rounding the corners of the PCB (edge-cuts) the lines can be adjusted to the arcs by dragging the handlers (white squares). that show up when the line is selected.

[@matthewtangerman4730]

Thank you. Good general introduction.

[@shabaz_]

Hi Matthew, Thanks for the feedback!

[@fardadmichaelserry7619]

Thank you! And CONGRATULATIONS: Your tutorial is excellent!

[@Rattaplon]

Watch the video. This one is done. can used. kicad 6 immediately. Thank you.

[@Ilikeridin]

I’ve started watching your video in sections, very good and an excellent resource. Up to now, the only PCB editor I’ve used is EasyEDA and due to the ease, its taken me a while to move away. Started to make the move and seems less daunting. Thank you

[@sumitmamoria]

Just curious, what are your reasons to move away from EasyEDA?

[@Ilikeridin]

@@sumitmamoria just to try something new and figure out the differences. A perk I knew of is to place components on either side of the PCB and to export .step files for Fusion 360

[@marcellerich]

thanks a lot for this great introduction

[@martinsmakerlab]

Great tutorial! Thank you very much!!!

[@ramimehyar481]

Many thanks!

[@jorgeferreira6727]

In the top toolbar there is a footprint assignment tool (also menu "tools->assign footprints") that uses a dual window and lets you assign footprints to several components at once, like all resistors, all caps and so on. The ERC errors for "not driven pins" are usually corrected by applying power flags (PWR_FLG in power library) to the GND, VDD, ....). I usually use a corner at the bottom of the schematic to associate the "PWR_FLG" to the power supply nets. The unused/not connected pins should be marked in the schematic with "no connect" symbol so they don't trigger either ERC (schematic) or DRC (PCB) errors or warnings.

[@shabaz_]

Hi Jorge, Thanks! This is very useful.

[@jsleeio]

great video. I'm looking at switching from Eagle so those particular tips were great. (un)fortunately I have also written external software that generates Eagle board files based on component attributes in the schematic/board file - automatically generating front panels for my projects based on data in my circuit PCB - so will need to figure out how to do that with Kicad. I'm sad to be leaving Eagle after many happy years with it, but Autodesk have become completely nightmarish and user-hostile 😞 (and for what it's worth, I was happily paying for Eagle Premium)

[@JacquesConradie]

Thanks for a very good intro!

[@esa689]

Just what I was looking for. thx!

[@niklaswennerstrand1010]

Great work! Thumbs up!

[@Marc_Miller]

Really nice run through. Appreciate you putting this up. Cheers

[@juobuz6771]

just skip to 28:30 if you re like me and cant find the damn forsaken "generate netlist button"

[@SeAfasia]

thnkas for posting this tutorial...very helpfull....

[@DGDG0000000]

nice tutorial! should be an official one! thank you so much.

[@vizmohanan]

That's a great tutorial 👏

[@malcolmboyes4242]

Excellent tutorial. I found it very concise and logical. Thank you for sharing your ability.

[@shabaz_]

Hi Malcolm, awesome, hope it was helpful. Thanks for the comment!

[@andiabwaerts]

thank you!!

[@danondler8808]

Great tutorial. Thank you.

[@shabaz_]

Hi Dan, Thanks!

[@glewiss6696]

Thanks for the outstanding tutorial! There used to be a shorcut with the mouse when copying a component on kikad 5. It just needed to move the mouse over the component to copy and just press c but in kikad 6 it seems that this handy option has disappeared.

[@jean-marclugrin1902]

Thank you, Exactly what I needed to upgrade my (very occasional) use of version 5 to version 6 with a good refresh. If you are ever bored, I would love a video on how to create simple 3D model for a relay or similar stuff (rough box is enough, but I found FreeCad quite unintuitive), Obviously I could learn and make a video myself, but I am lazy and not very good at explaining 😏

[@shabaz_]

Hi Jean-Marc, Thanks for watching! I find FreeCad unintuitive too, however SolveSpace seemed a bit easier. I don't know how to create a 3D model yet, but as soon as I learn it, I'll post a video.

[@jean-marclugrin1902]

@@shabaz_ Thanks. I agree that FreedCad is less than self explanatory. In general I use OpensScad for my 3D design, but I am not sure that it is useable for that purpose, but I will have a look at SolveSpace. About FreeCad, I found the 2 video in the channel kzbin.info/aero/PL4eMS3gkRNXcvNnawxzuzRlFDa5CseoQV very useful. I followed them after yours and was able to make a very simple box with pins after some struggles (this is enough for my purpose). The real difficulty is to size and place the generated object (whatever way it is generated) in the footprint. For unknown reasons the files generated by FreeCad is scaled by 2.54 🙂.Placing the origin correctly is also annoying. There is a python script that supposed to help, but it does many other things and the demo/explanations are for older versions of Kicad and are pretty complex (StepUp). I guess that what would be most helpfull is information about the placement/scaling of the objects and the type of files supported.

[@stanisawniedzwiecki5005]

@@shabaz_ I recomennd using Fusion360

[@SamiUhiha]

Great tutorial i appreciate your work in setting this all up, thanks alot!!

[@robertnicholson1309]

Excellent job. Thank you!

[@ma3oun]

Excellent video! Very thorough!

[@tzell1917]

Dude that was really helpful. Thank you !

[@jasinowili8204]

I cant thank you enough. Thanks a lot for this amazing Video

[@sabinbaral4132]

very good content sir thank you

[@matthewroszkowski4674]

Very helpful, thank you so much!

[@bobweiram6321]

It would be helpful to breakdown the video into chapters. It make it easier for your viewers to use the video as a reference, which increases your view count.

[@shabaz_]

They are there, they may be hidden under the 'Show More' link, if you can expand that, it should list the approx 30 chapters.

[@bobweiram6321]

@@shabaz_ Weird! Either you added them in to save face or KZbin's cache got refreshed. LOL!

[@manisteve862]

Thanks for the excellent lesson. I’m trying to lose my “Bodge champion” title!

[@glewiss6696]

Hello, Thanks for your video. Is there an easy way on Kicad to realigned on the grid components that were moved after all the wires were connected. I now have many errors on ERC due to the wire not in line with the components pins. It's a mess! Thanks

[@shabaz_]

If you select a component and right-click it, I see an 'Align component to Grid' option, does that work for your scenario? I've been burned in the past by changing grid on schematics on other CAD tools, so with KiCAD I never change the schematic grid settings, only PCB grid settings, so I've never tried that Align function. Hopefully it works for you.

[@naturevolt]

thanks!

[@revelae]

great video thank you

[@victorhansen7890]

Hi, great video, it helped out tremendously! I have one question regarding the soldermask of the PCB, do I need to anything besides making sure it is marked when I make my Gerber files? I thought I would have to make a filled zone like you do for the copper layer, but I see that is not the case? Thanks in advance.

[@shabaz_]

Hi Victor, thanks! Provided the F.Mask and B.Mask layers are checked on the Plot options (they are checked by default, so nothing to do) then the mask layer will be correctly generated. There's no need to create a filled zone for it, because the mask is automatically computed based on the pad designs per component. The mask will be automatically created wherever there is no pad.

[@Sembazuru]

I'm still watching this for the first time, but I want to underscore the need to create your own libraries. The way KiCAD is installed, all the provided libraries are (or at least should be) write protected. This is to prevent the user from losing their custom libraries when you upgrade KiCAD. By default, upgrading KiCAD will replace the existing provided libraries with the latest versions. This will wipe out any assets (symbols or footprints) that don't exist in the master library set provided by KiCAD. So your symbols that you may have added to the provided set will be removed just like obsolete (or reorganized) symbols will. This is very important to get right at the beginning otherwise the user will have problems. But the effect won't happen until long after cause and effect can be easily determined.

[@fardadmichaelserry7619]

Christopher, do you mean KiCAD update will leave items in user-created libraries unchanged (while updating all the provided libraries)? So, we won't lose for example footprints we build and store in user-defined libraries?

[@Sembazuru]

@@fardadmichaelserry7619 Yes, that is what I mean. Now as an example with the v6 update, you will need to manually migrate your personal libraries to the new format if you want to edit them. (KiCad only saves library assets in the latest library format, but can read legacy library formats.) But the tools to do that are in the library management toolset of KiCad. But if you don't need to edit the assets (for example a 3rd party managed library and/or example footprints) you should be able to read and use the legacy assets.

[@fardadmichaelserry7619]

@@Sembazuru Thank you for the follow-up; I appreciate it.

[@markrgreenlane]

Very good video, I’ve watched it twice so far. Will you be doing further tutorials on how you did and the full features of drawing out your schematic as I thought there was a section missing out of an otherwise excellent tutorial.

[@shabaz_]

Hi Mark, thanks! Regarding the schematic (and board incidentally), to create them, I only used the features that were discussed in the video (and no other features), I just didn't record longer segments of it, to keep the video as short as I could manage, since I initially felt that people could feel confident that they can work to at least the same level of schematic and board as shown in the video, with no missing information to get them that far, without needing to watch a series of videos. I wish I'd recorded longer, for a second optional video too, since it helps watching others work. I have to run a short talk on KiCad next week, I'll ask the organizer if they are OK with recording it, in which case I will definitely share that link here too, if that helps.

[@markrgreenlane]

@@shabaz_ thank you got the reply, I think that would be very good and enjoyed by others that have watch this one too.

[@janlundstrom7305]

Total noob here. Have'nt check all the video yet. But @ 2min you say Key press A button and it pop-up a grey box with shortcuts descriptions. What did you do to view that? Or is it just an overlay in the video?

[@shabaz_]

Hello, you can use the Help -> List Hotkeys menu item to see the box with the shortcuts. The dark-grey box was a summary overlay of the most important hotkeys in the video, but clicking on Help->List Hotkeys will display them all. And then when you're ready, press A to add a component (which will bring up the Add Component Symbol box to choose a resistor symbol etc).

[@janlundstrom7305]

@@shabaz_ Thanks. I got the Help->List Hotkeys. Just was confused of the overlay. Looked like it was from KiCad :) Nice video!

[@RixtronixLAB]

Nice video, well done, thanks :)

[@GodmanchesterGoblin]

This is a great introduction to KiCad, and very well presented. Thank you. I have one question... For a non-plated hole (with no track) I would be inclined to make the copper pad smaller than the hole. This would prevent any residual copper at the edge of the hole if the board was under etched or if drilling was very slightly offset. I know that these days the drilling would normally be OK, but I am an old-school PCB designer (mid 80s up to late 90s). I am new to KiCad, however, and haven't done a serious board layout in over 20 years.

[@shabaz_]

Hi! Good point, and makes sense. I just wasn't sure if the KiCad code internally does something special if it recognizes if the two fields are set the same or not. I've tried examining the KiCad source code but I'm not familiar with where to look in the code. I'll raise this as a question on the forum, to see what should be done, since it's a very valid point that there could be slight drilling offset which would cause issues if KiCad doesn't automatically not place anything on the copper layer around that hole

[@shabaz_]

I raised it here: forum.kicad.info/t/holes-without-copper-and-slight-drill-offsets/33675/2 and I think you're right, the copper pad should be slightly smaller than the drill hole in that scenario. It causes a warning to appear when you set the size smaller, but it's better to live with that than have the sliver of copper risk.

[@GodmanchesterGoblin]

@@shabaz_ Thanks. I took a look at the forum chat. That's pretty much what I thought. Non-plated holes would sometimes be needed, but it really depends on the use case and the manufacturing process for the board - if flow soldering could partially block a mounting hole, for example. But those kinds of considerations apply regardless of the CAD tools used, and it's up to the engineer to manage the design accordingly. Anyway, I have a small PCB project to get done, so I am going to give KiCad a try. Thanks again for a great tutorial.

[@lynwilliams3800]

Hi! Your vid was a great help in pulling together enough skills to run Kicad 6. The presentation is fantastic. Are you going to do a Kicad 7 version?

[@shabaz_]

Hi Lyn, Thanks for your feedback! The user interface differences between V6 and V7 are small (in contrast to the difference between V6 and earlier versions), so one idea was to clone the video and edit in any major differences. I'm not entirely sure how I will do it, but definitely giving it some thought. There are nice productivity improvements in V7, which are definitely worth covering. So far when working with V7 I'm using it almost like V6, however one difference for example is that when using the PCB Editor, on the left side there is now a Properties pane that speeds up editing things. It is possible to ignore the pane and work just like in V6, but it's definitely worth exploring using that new pane.

[@mehmetarifartan5633]

Teşekkürler.

[@markrgreenlane]

Hi, will you be making a similar tutorial video for the new KiCAD7

[@shabaz_]

Hi Mark, I might just make a short delta video, because Kicad 7 is so similar to version 6 in terms of user interface. There are some additional features which are worth having in a video, but aside from that, most of the screen views are near-identical between version 7 and the older V6. It was a bigger difference between V5 and V6, where there were significant UI changes. If you're new to any version of Kicad, then I think the V6 videos are still worth watching, and you'll be up and running with V7 with them. I've been using V7 since it was released, and I've not seen any incompatibility with how V6 was used so far. There's a nice properties panel, which is worth using, but you'll spot it as you work with it (and KiCad can be used without touching the panel, but it speeds up some editing tasks). Also, there's nice handling of inverse silkscreen text, I tried that on a PCB recently, it is good.

[@hoangcao6991]

Cám ơn a rất nhiều ạ!

[@shabaz_]

Hi Hoàng, Thanks!

[@mateoslab]

hi. when i do the copper fill like you did it doesn't connect the grounds together it still shows as if i need to add traces

[@user-sp9ue1ws7c]

Why would my board not have a netlist. Is it an error with footprints or the way I set it up?

[@shabaz_]

I'm not sure, but if you can paste a screenshot (either on the Kicad forum or element14 forum, showing the error message you're seeing) then hopefully myself or someone else may recognise the issue. Unfortunately the comments section is hard to use for troubleshooting without screenshots/more info.

[@user-sp9ue1ws7c]

@@shabaz_ I ended up just deleting everything and restarting and it worked out🤷‍♂ but thanks

[@bdentertainmentlearningcha3222]

If I don't find any component how to find that to place in kicad schematic? Suppose I need CD4066BE but I don't see in kicad.

[@shabaz_]

The information is in the video. It describes how to create any component.

[@Kapparie]

16:35 Where did you click to get the SOT-457T ? I have installed Kicad, but the footprint library is empty. How can I get the footprint librabry?

[@shabaz_]

Hi, there are thousands of components and footprints that are installed by default, they are part of the KiCad installer. For instance, in the path C:\Program Files\KiCad\7.0\share\kicad\footprints there will be more than a hundred libraries (the path may vary). If you're not seeing that, then there is an issue in the installation of KiCad. In the video, I created a custom library, which is empty since it is newly created, called User_Global_Library, and then I proceeded to create the SOT-457T footprint inside there as an example. If you're referring to the dimensioned drawing at time 16:37 in the video, that is not part of KiCad, that is just a screenshot from a datasheet. I referred to the component datasheet to find out the size of the pads, so that I can create the footprint in the newly created libray.

[@Kapparie]

@@shabaz_ my footprint library is empty , left pane is empty and I don’t know how to make it available.

[@shabaz_]

@@Kapparie It might be worth reinstalling. When KiCad is installed, nothing needs to be done to have access to the default libraries that were visible in the video. If you're not seeing them, can you reinstall KiCad (perhaps on Linux if you're not using the latest Windows)? It for sure works because I recently installed KiCad 7, and again, nothing needed to be done to see the default libraries for both schematic symbols and footprints. If it still doesn't work, you may need to grab some debug (for instance, screenshots or video and create a discussion on the KiCad forum. Ordinarily, you'll get a response the same day.

[@stanisawniedzwiecki5005]

These gerber settings are ok?

[@shabaz_]

Hi Stanislaw, yes I think they are usable for general PCB work, because I used the settings as shown in the video, for 2-layer boards from a manufacturer in China (JLC PCB) and the boards have come back fine each time.

[@stanisawniedzwiecki5005]

@@shabaz_ thank you very much, I couldn't get away errors in their Gerber viewer. On forums it is said also that PCB will be okay

[@eroskuikel231]

hey where did you get the pico library from? smh

[@shabaz_]

Hi, I used this one: github.com/ncarandini/KiCad-RP-Pico

[@raymondkyruana118]

Hello! Thank you so much for this! I'm pretty new to designing PCB's so I was wondering if could maybe tutor me little bit on zoom or something? I would be willing to pay.

[@shabaz_]

Hi Raymond, Thanks! I could try to set up a zoom call for anyone to freely join in in future, however it takes some prep and time scheduling which is awkward currently, but in the meantime a good option could be to go to element14.com, everyone is friendly there, and just write what you're doing, with any screenshots where needed, and people will quickly step in and advise. There's several people with good KiCad experience there. This helped me a lot when I learned, I noted and took screenshots of what I was doing over the space of a few days which I dedicated to learning KiCad, and people just stepped in and commented as I went along. The official KiCad forum is good too, people respond promptly and with great knowledge. The element14 forum is useful for KiCad and non-KiCad stuff, such as electronic circuit design/troubleshooting, component selection and so on, so a blend of using both sites could be a good way forward during your learning.

[@raymondkyruana118]

@@shabaz_ Thank you so much! I will definitely check out element14 and yeah I am familiar with the official forum so I'll use that as well. In terms of zoom, my schedule is flexible if that helps. Thanks again for responding

[@samael5782]

Instead CTRL+C CTRL+V just use CTRL+D for duplicate.

[@shabaz_]

Hi Samael, Thank you for this! I just tried it, and it works great : )