KiCAD Quick-Start Tutorial

hey there let's get started using ki CAD ok starting ki CAD here there's the main window go new project tell it where I'd like it to be plug in a name collect circuit click save click yes create a new directory start the schematic capture module click there click yes to create a new schematic they're blank schematic I'm going to create a new library symbol somatic symbol so I'm going to go to the library editor there we go now I'll bring up the datasheet for the part I want to make a symbol for us so let me scroll this down I'm going to go down to the pin out here for my 20 pin TS SOP package we go so back here I'm going to go create a new component click that name my component oops okay there we go now let me zoom in here there we go I'm using the scroll wheel on the mouse click on that place a new pin name the pin let me start here from number one and just go all the way through to 20 maybe the pin tap down give it the pin a number then drop that over here okay well I've got that tool active I can just click again and it will bring back up this dialog so I can just run through and quickly create all the pins that I need for the symbol click again name the pin tab down number the pin click OK damn drop it and go fast forward here a little bit so you have to watch me do all these there we go almost done ok in 19 and finally in 20 damn okay I need a border on this symbol so I'm going to go over here to the right click that click here and drag across nice I'm going to move these things out of the way I'm using the M key using a lot of keyboard shortcuts here just because it's a big time-saver almost done ok so that looks good so I'm going to insert this into my library see where do I go I go over here yep save into a new library I'm going to accept that default name and that's fine click Save I can ignore that for now and then I'm done here I can get out of here we've got a new library with one component in it back here to the schematic capture module and component libraries I got to do that click Add I'm going to go add the new library that had just created so there it is click that and down here click OK now on the right you can click place component click and then I can just type in a search there we go there's my new component and drop it in there we go okay now I think there I'm going to need to add some other things here because I wanted to want to make a whole circuit here not just the microcontroller okay and again I'm just typing in search is here to quickly find the parts that I want these are all the components from AI CAD standard library and there there's a bunch stuff in here so give it a shot check out what they got in there um I'm going to add a couple more things from here and then I'll probably skip ahead just so you guys don't have to see me spend time creating these modules here but while I'm doing this I wanted to point out I'm using a lot of the keyboard shortcuts there is a keyboard shortcut editor a lot of the features are already bound keys by default and it's probably a good idea to get familiar with them a moves components are rotates and there are a bunch of other good things here to make the work lot quicker so you're not seeing me bring up a lot of the context menus I'm using keyboard shortcuts there we go I clicked on the right dropped in a piece of text and I just pasted it in a little bit of notes so I actually know what I'm gonna have to add here right there that's a place global label I'm going to use that so they don't have to run a bunch of traces or tracks because I like to have a kind of a neat looking schematic and not run a bunch of wires everywhere so I named that and click there drop it in click again give this one a new name and I'm going to run through and create labels for all these the signals on the microcontroller that I want okay here we go patted them all when I do a box select like that I can move around all the selected items at one time so that's kind of Andy there are some other things once you have something selected you can mirror flip-flop rotate all those items as a group its Andy check it out okay now I'm going to take all these global labels and start dropping them onto my part later on I'm going to make some duplicates of these labels so that the signals are connected to where they need to go okay almost done here okay get rid of that you yeah okay I'm going to skip forward a little bit click that that's a that's a no connect just because I'm pretty sure I'm not going to need those pins the rest I'm not sure about now I want to add power so that's a place power port do a search here there's my three volts drop that in I'm going to want another one for ground drop that in and I'll move these into place and just threw out these ones manually I'm using the W key here to run a track now I forget if I have that mapped to a key shortcut that I made but if you don't have a mapped over on the right you'll see that there is the green wire that's the icon to be able to run a track there so click click done look at that okay let's get forward ahead but uh done with my schematic okay now I want to annotate it so go up to the top here and click this button annotate I'm going to keep the defaults and just click annotate okay there we go all my symbols are annotated I've got r1 r2 etc etc okay generate netlist defaults are fine click generate the default name is fine click Save now I've got a netlist I'm going to need that later then click there cvpcb and that's going to help me link my schematic symbols to footprints turn on the preview there we go now I'm going to run down this list and pick a footprint for each one of the symbols that I've got in my schematic see here capacitor there's some tools to the top to be able to filter this list and that comes in handy otherwise to get a nice massive list depending on which libraries you've got installed but uh go down and pick one of the footprints here for my capacitor and now I'm just clicking and it automatically advances that list here okay I skip forward a bit here we go get ahead of myself almost done there we go there's last part TS SLP 20 double-click that okay I'm done okay I'm done here I'm going to save this output there and then I can close this I have my component file okay now I'm going to do two over here and show you what plotting looks like so click file plot set PDF and I like mine and black and white there I'm going to plot just this page cool close that and let me load this up here I think the PDF plots from ki CAD look really awesome I don't know I just think they look really great so I'm going to load this up here and show you what that looks like oh nice anyway that features there I just wanted to point that out okay close this back to my schematic ah save this file we're done okay now let's go into the PC board layout tool yes create that here we go blank PC board layout now I'm going to pull in my netlist so click there read netlist recurrent net list and then cool yeah that worked close and here we go here are all our footprints and dropped into a nice big heap for us so let's move them out of the way oops move move move I'm using the M key and getting these out of the way there we go oh look at that I'm so fast okay so now that I've moved to use all in to about the space where I want them to be I'm gonna turn off render values turn that off I don't need those now those don't show up in a silk screen so click that go back to layer eco one user so I'm using the line tool here I'm going to myself some construction lines for the board outline this one's pretty straightforward I just click drag across click there and I'm going to go around the perimeter of my board and draw the outline I'm not using the edge cuts layer yet because I want to do some rounded corners so I'm just using this eco one user layer as just kind of a temporary layer okay nice okay now let's switch over and use the edge cuts layer it just there and go draw some more lines I'm going to pull them out from the corner a little bit because I'm going to do rounded corners for that I'll do you use the arc tool there we go click work start from the center and drag out nice go over here click in the center drag out click again nice okay there we go done delete these construction lines because I do not need them anymore cool all right now doo-doo-doo-doo looks good uh maybe ok now I've got some silk screen not where I want it to be we move those out of the way to do okay that's a that's me right-clicking changing the the grid settings so I can get a little bit more control over the the placement of those items finish this thing up here I think I'll okay put it there yeah okay all done now I want to show you this cuz awesome 3d viewer look at that okay now I did not make these 3d models some other hard-working people did I think it's awesome so I wanted to show that to you guys obviously you don't need that to finish a design but it's cool feature so check that out cool okay close that all right now I want to add some quick there add filled zones so I want to add a power and a ground plane it complained about the zone being off the display being off so I click there to turn the display back on and I'm going to draw the zone outline starting at any particular place click the layer click the net I want to use for my my zone and whatever other options you want to pick ok and that starts off my zone so I'm going to start clicking around the perimeter of the zone and click quick all the way around so I pick the top layer so you can see it's showing up in the default color for the top layer top copper layer that is all the way around and on the last point instead of left clicking on a right-click and close own outline nice okay I'm done I can see that the edge is crosshatch there right-click it and I'm going to duplicate that Zone on to another layer which is going to be the bottom copper layer I'm going to select the ground net click OK BAM okay now I got both my zones one on the top one on the bottom I want to fill those so I'm going to get good click that again right click inside the zone fill or refill all zones nice ok so I've just filled my zones I'm going to go back to the three 3d viewer sorry and check that out um so the filling respects the pads there so I've got a nice little relief around all the pads the thermal relief check that out okay turn that off kind of annoying if I'm not actually trying to work on the zones okay let's add some tracks go over here on the right add track and pick my top copper layer and click click and click click and then right click and track do it again and that one okay now usually when I add tracks like this I'm going to go and use the keyboard shortcuts that I have defined just because it's a whole lot quicker than using the the context menus I definitely recommend going through setting up your hotkeys or at least knowing which ones the defaults use because it's a big time-saver so I'm going to finish up these tracks here and definitely skip forward so you guys don't have to watch it all but I want to show you guys how to change the track width for that we're going to go up here to design rules design rules um this is a list of all the nets that we've got in the schematic and all the net classes so what I'm going to do is I'm going to assign one of these nets to a new net class mmm I kind of forget how to use this okay bear with me what I want I want to go here at okay add a new net class there we go change some of the defaults I'm just going to change it to track track with here too sure whatever okay and then on the right here I'm going to pick my new net class their power um left I want to pick my net click those right arrows and I will take that net or any other selected ones into that net class make another one call it sure five volts okay that move this nut over to this net class now change this a little bit make it bigger okay okay done with that right click on any track edit tracks and vias set all tracks to their net class values click OK yes there we go now I know if you notice that but the track widened up a little bit you can see it in relation to the other one cool Hey okay there we go now I'm all done laying down my tracks nice let's check it out in the 3d viewer gratuitous Li yeah look at that awesome looks neat ok I think we're pretty much done here we got all our tracks we got our ground fill so we got all their components I want to add a couple things to the silkscreen to finish up the design so let's see you add some text click that get on to my silk screen layer somewhere front silk screen and I don't know there we go just something so you can see how that works do that plug in some different values for my height and my width and my thickness click OK and drop that in okay it looks good uh I'm going to add a logo here down at the bottom so click over here I component click here and I'm going to use the browser drop this down to symbols and I'm just going to pick something from the standard library that open-source Hardware logo looks good like that BAM okay a design rule check go up here DRC and I'm going to run my design rule check click there start DRC and if nothing shows up in either of these windows here they're tabbed and we're good click ok now I'm ready to make some Gerber files so file plot and I'm going to make sure that I have all the layers selected I want to make Gerber files for so I want my edge kits and I want my mask my front back mask to make sure that the format up at the top is correct the I'm on Gerber that's cool that's pretty much it I'm going to use the defaults here so click OK for plot sorry and I also want to drill file so I click there generate drill file select the format Gerber also that's good here click there generate the Joule file close that close that and let's go check out this Gerber files I'm going to use groovy and this is a different tool it's not part of ki cads package but I think it's a cool tool and I like to use it in favor of your view so I'm going to go load up the files that I just created there multi-select and when I've got them all click open and there we go I'm going to change the rendering here to high quality and then we'll get some transparency and we're pretty much done here if these look good you're ready to send them out to a fat in here you can do that and reorganize the layers and just kind of set the stack up the way that they be physically and just kind of play around and see what they look like you can change colors and do nice PNG exports from here and just make sure that the artwork is is how you want it to be but I think that's pretty much it I hope you enjoyed the tutorial and good luck using ki CAD if you have any comments please leave them on the video thanks

Channel: Windsor Schmidt

Views: 449,811

Keywords: KiCad (Software), Electronics (Field Of Study), Tutorial (Media Genre), pcb, circuit

Id: zK3rDhJqMu0

Length: 20min 24sec (1224 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 09 2015