15 Tips and Tricks for Using KiCad

hey everybody how's it going I'm cue the geek and today we're gonna be talking about 15 tips and tricks to make better pc b--'s using kai cad so let's get into it this video is brought to you by PCB way where you can get prototype circuit boards for five dollars with a myriad of options for PCB assembly flex circuits and otherwise PCB way has you covered check out the link for more information in the video description below [Music] okay tip number one use the electronic rule check I feel like this should be fairly straightforward but within a schema the schematic generator there is a way to validate your schematic so use it tip number two there's also a design rule check in your PCB editor use it as well it helps verify that your design meets your rules and therefore is producible the DRC will help you make sure that you haven't placed any tracks or parts somewhere that could conflict and cause a design error number three set your pins correctly so when you are developing and designing schematic symbols as well as footprints make sure that you have set your pins correctly now what this means is that within your symbol editor you can modify whether a pin is an input output bi-directional tri-state power input or power output passive no connect or several other things make sure you're using the right one for the pin this is something that is easily found in the data sheets that you're using most data sheets will have a pin table for you to look at so go through that and make sure that all of your pins are set correctly by using these pin descriptors the electronic rule check knows how to work and will make sure that you haven't connected an output to an output which would be bad it will also help make sure that any power inputs that is VCC and ground on any of your parts are connected properly to something that is sourcing power now with this there's something to know that there is a power flag within the power library from kai CAD that tells a line that it has power on it this is important because you're not always going to have power produced from your design you will have to bring it in from somewhere else such as the wall or battery anytime you have something such as VCC and ground coming into your board from outside of your design make sure they are set with a power flag this tells the electronic rule check that that line has power and it is okay for anything that is connected as a power input to function tip number four use the component table for mass editing now what you may not be aware of is that there is a component table that you can click on and select that will show you all of the components in your design and anything that has the same value can be grouped together now using this table you can actually go through and set and change all of these parts that could be the same value so that you when you order parts you aren't ordering numerous parts that you might actually get bulk quantity discounting on number five use hierarchal sheets for large or complex designs what this means is you can separate your design out into sub components of the overall design this is more handy when you have things you want to isolate such as the power supply the microcontroller programming interface or different things so that it is just that on the schematic sheet so you can focus on one thing at a time this is also helpful when you create your PCB because you can group your components by their sheets you can also group them as far as they're annotated values so the numbers that they receive such as R 1 R 2 R 3 those things can be changed to have a 100 s number so it can be parts 101 102 or 103 and you know that's in the first sheet so when you're troubleshooting later on it's a little handier to find in the schematic what that part is just from looking at the silkscreen on the board number 6 when you're creating footprints use the front fab for the physical outline of the part and the front courtyard to show that nothing can be placed within a certain distance of that part this comes in handy when you're using the design rule check on your PCB design because you can keep parts from overlapping or being placed in a way that they cannot physically be placed when you go to build up the board now this can be really simple it doesn't have to be complicated so for your your front fab and the physical outline that is something that will be in your datasheet they will always tell you your package type and give you the dimensions for it as for the courtyard I usually just give it a little bit of space side of the physical pins and maybe the silkscreen just to make sure that you have space for that especially if you have a pin one indicator dot number seven get 3d models for all of your components now this is a part of your footprint design phase but for any part that you make find the 3d model for it as well verify that the cad parts that you're using have 3d models to go with them as well this comes in handy when you're trying to take a look at the board or if you have to pass it over to a mechanical engineer to design your enclosure or if you're designing the enclosure yourself number eight use the 3d viewer during layout now this goes along with tip number seven but use your 3d viewer when you're doing your layout to verify that you don't have overlapping silk screens that you don't have parts that are conflicting with each other and that everything should actually work when you produce it this is something that I like to do frequently while I'm doing my designs that way I can keep everything in mind and it's not a last-ditch effort at the end to make sure everything fits because then you might find a big problem that you have to redo and it will take more time so doing these things in iterations is a lot more efficient and this goes along with the design rule check as well you don't want to wait until the end of your design to run your DRC number nine use a ground pour now what this is is it's the full plate of copper that is connected to ground for one this makes it really easy when you're troubleshooting if you need to get into ground you can just scrape away some of your solder mask and connect into it number two this helps provide heat sinks for chips that may require that it also makes it a little easier if you decide to mill your board at home you have to worry about milling away a large chunk of copper you can just mill out around your traces number ten no acute angles now what this means is that if you have two traces that come together in a t-junction you don't bring them off in a 45 degree angle and create an acute angle now what this does it can create an area for the acids that are used in etching to cool and potentially eat away in your traces now this may not be that big of a deal depending on your design but it is something that for cleanliness I recommend what you can do to fix this is you can come in at just a 90 degree and leave it at that or you can come into a 90 and then bring off two separate traces from either side to create a triangle connecting those traces together this will help your design be more manufacturable number 11 stitch your ground poor with vias now stitching is a means of putting vias that will connect the front in the background pores together now why you want to do this is you don't want to end up with islands that are supposed to be ground but aren't actually connected to the main ground body this is something that does require a little bit of art you can use plugins that will do the stitching automatically for you and will create a pattern but you may not necessarily need that and what this may entitle is just a few vias placed randomly throughout your board just to make sure that everything is connected front and back number 12 understand what tools you have at your disposal now this comes down to learning your design suite now there are a lot of tools that you can use such as differential pair routing trace length tuning and microwave tools now these things you may not know are there and it may be keeping you back in some of your designs it is worth finding them learning about them and familiarizing yourself so that when the time comes you can use these tools to your advantage number thirteen place your components in groups for example if you have an icy place it with all of its supporting passives nearby you can even do this off board and place your capacitors or your resistors for that component directly near them so you know they need to go together so one way that I use this is when I'm designing switching power supplies I will actually design the entire switching power supply from the datasheet and a typical application along with all of the poor off of the board and then I will bring it in and place it because that needs to have the highest priority of how its design or may not be as efficient so I designed it off board and then I bring it in and move things around accordingly number fourteen peer review so one thing that is very handy with in all PCB design is having somebody else look over your work even if that's somebody doesn't exactly understand electronics walking them through your design and explaining how everything is connected may help you find things that are wrong just in the process of explaining it if you do have somebody that can look over your design that understands the electronics they may be able to catch things that you didn't see because you've been working on that project for months to years and it's one of those things that you just glossed over or forgot about another thing you can do with peer reviews is you can have somebody go through and check all of your pin outs to make sure that they are done correctly because the last thing you want is for the power pins to be rolled on a part and then get your design and find out it doesn't work and you have to rewire it with jump wires so that you can actually use your board a simple thing such as checking your pins could save you significant heartache number fifteen only break the rules if you know why you're breaking them now this one may seem a little odd but it is something that I have taught to my interns and to other people that I've worked with on PCB design if you are going to break your rules know why you're breaking them for example if you're going to put a couple of parts overlapping each other know why you're doing it if you have a through-hole parts such as a resistor and a surface mount part that's another resistor that can be connected in the exact same way that is okay but it will flag as an issue on your DRC there are things you can do such as disabling the courtyard check but do it sparingly if you throw errors in your DRC you need to know why it's happening don't ignore them but if it is something that you don't have to worry about be aware of it if you don't know why you're breaking a rule don't break it change your design to follow the design rules one place this is coming with me is I have created a few parts especially a connector that because of the way the pads were treated I didn't really want to go through and do a full detailed outline around the part for my courtyard so I did a lazy rectangle around the whole part and when I designed my board I had to move a sawed 23 to connect in by that connector now my DRC threw a fit but I knew why and I knew it wasn't going to be a problem within the physical layering or the design of the board so it will throw an error but I know to ignore it because I know what it is all right everybody that's it that's your 15 tips for designing better boards in Chi CAD I hope you've learned something I hope you found some tools or some advice from this video that you may not have known before if you have let me know in the comments below what's your favorite tip what's something that you're going to be employing in your next design I want to thank everybody so much that has supported me and has subscribed on patreon and I'm sorry that it's taking me a little while to get another video out unfortunately in between last semester and the starts of this semester I really haven't had much free time and I fear that it's probably gonna take me a little bit to get another video out so I do apologize for that but I want to be upfront with you and have you understand that as far as everything else goes you know how to reach me normally you can check me out on patreon you can go over to Twitter add cute the geek and you can comment below I always check out these comments and and read through them you know please know that I have not forgotten well any of the other projects that I've been working on I just haven't had the time now as usual be sure to LIKE comment and subscribe thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one [Music]

Channel: Kuit the Geek

Views: 8,803

Keywords: pcb design, kicad, electronic engineering, electrical engineering, tips and tricks, electronic design software, electronic design tutorial, engineering

Id: CgZ4WzhtxtY

Length: 13min 32sec (812 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 30 2020