An Intro to KiCad - Part 4: Create a Footprint | DigiKey 

I can't believe how good this guy is. He belongs in Hollywood as a cast-character. RU-vid is his starting-point on an incredible career before him, if he goes out and grabs it. Mr. Bow-tie man is going to have his own TV show, movie, or something really big.

These are great tutorials for those of us who are new to PCB design. Shawn has a very clear way of explaining each key stroke. Also easy to watch a second or third time if necessary.

In KiCAD 5.1.9, you have to first creat a new library by going to File > New Library Then, File > New Footprint Then Save changes to library (thrid button from the left on the ribbon under the file menue)

quality lessons for free, greatly appreciated!

Kicad has come a long way. Quite a nice piece of software to use for me.

this helped lots. Can always rely on hard working creators like u man.

Ugh... just four months after this otherwise masterfully produced tutorial was made and my KiCad interfaces all look just different enough to be frustrating. Oh well. Thanks all the same, Shawn. This is solid stuff all the same.

Your tutorials are very well made! I like how you take time to explain what things are standard and some history behind some of the topics. Thanks for sharing

See a number of differences between KiCad v4 presented here and the current V6. Worth considering a remake of this and maybe other videos in this well done series.

Wow! Extremely well done. Succinct and Complete! You even add some reasons for why you are doing things the way you are, like local vs global libraries. Setting up KiCad's libraries is messy, and you handle it very well. Please hurry with the remaining episodes! I have not used KiCad for about 6 months, and you are making reviewing efficient. And, you are answering some previous questions I had. And having Digi-Key involved is great. I buy from them anyway.

This tutorial is the best I ever have seen. For this section, it would be great to add assigning 3D models to parts. After all, a board with components has to be placed into an enclosure, etc. I have trouble finding a good tutorial for this process.

When I grow up, I want to be like Shawn! I bet he went to a really good college.

I am new to kicad ,embarresed to say that it took two days to design a foot print,but i designed thanks

Thank you so much for this video series. An amazing intro to KiCad.

Excellent Shawn! Thank you for your always great content! 🙂

Cheers for the help in this. Plenty of info and explained well.

Pin 1 is normally a square pad, so you can tell from either side which pin is pin 1 for through hole parts.

Well built instructional material, just right, thanks dude(s) !

Thanks so much for these videos Shawn and Digikey. Just so thorough and easy to work along with. Such great exercises for learning KiCad. Really appreciate it. Will be looking to order more parts from DigiKey at work when I do parts orders as thanks (:

Excelente tutorial. Recomiendo que lo vean. Gracias por compartirlo.

Would love to see a tutorial on using 3d parts with footprints

I would use both the semi circle and the dot markings at the same time. The semi circle for the assembly and the dot or circle for diagnosis and debugging.

Extremely timely for me as I upgrade my hobby skills. And I've been a digikey customer for a long time. Thank you for making these. When will the next one be coming!!

Very nice presentation, but creating af new PDIP (8 - 48 pin) in Fritzing seem somewhat more easy. You take an open 8 pin then change the number of pins, naming the DIP pins 1 - X make af description - it takes 2 - 4 min. depending on the number of pins. Pin description can often be copied directly from the datasheet

Hey guys, I'm not sure if anyone else is having this problem. This may be because of the KiCad 5 updates but when I switch to inches, only the position changes to inches. The hole size remains in millimeters. For some reason when I try to mess with the hole size to make it smaller, kiCad has an issue and seems to scale everything down. However, when I keep the dimensions in millimeters I don't seem to have this problem. Does anyone know a fix? SOLVED: I figured it out. I was confusing mils with millimeters when a mil is really a thousandth of an inch.

Thanks, you have been helpful!

While engineering is about problem-solving this seems a bit extreme. While there is definite advantages to using Kicad and I am not one to give up because something presents difficulty, I do have to wonder if my time would be better spent like with Eagle or EasyEDA.

Here is a guide for creating and saving librarys on a mac today go to the footprint editor and at the top toolbar (not the kicad one but the one that is on the very top of your desktop) choose Manage footprint librarys under preferances. go to project specific librarys and click the + button. Choose a name, file to save the library in (your project file in documents) and a description. once that is done, click OK. Then go to your footprint editor and click save, choose your library and click OK. your library will now appear in the library explorer with your footprint inside it.

Really really good tutorial

The current version (5.1.8)-1 is so different (menu names, how directories are listed, etc.) that it is really detracting from the value of the video. I was kind of figuring how to get around the changes in the menu structure until I got to this vido (part 4). The footprint won't save, even though I have created the library, point to the directory, etc. Also, the line edit does not work. I right click on the line to set the start points, don't get an edit window, just a menu box with Cancel, Center, Zoom In, Zoom Out...Grid. Also the grid does not set to the menu values (trying to set it to 20, as in the video). It stays at 25, even though the selection shows 20. AARGH!

Why all the coordinate drawing, why not just set grid and snap to intersections. I do coord drawing for another EDA, but I snap pads because it's quicker. In Inksacpe you can offset the grid, can't you do that in that drawing package to get the part centred.

Very good video,thank you.

To make the math easier, couldn't you put the origin at pin 1 and then move it afterwards?

Thanks for the great lessons. What layer do you use to show "keepout" area? It's the white frame around the whole component. Keepout is the name of it in Eagle.

The XY system isn’t specific to KiCad but for computer graphics in general, just fyi

It is a lot of work, and the imperial system is not helping, it is the opposite. It would have been okay if some people kept the imperial system as a folklore. But there are limits in what can be done with it, those limits have been reached already, writing everything smaller than an inch as a fraction is such a limit. Only the solution is so halfly done. Yes, the decimal system would have been better. Simply forget inches, never touch them again and it is over.

Can anyone plz tell me, how can we take dimension 0.1 for 1 pin and then take 0.05,plz help

Thanks great video!

I couldn't draw on F.Fab layer,, did anyone have this problem too?

Why wouldn't you make pin one pad square which is pretty much the standard?

nice,it helped a lot

Needs the option to make one pin/pad, then make an array of those pads by entering the number of pads and spacing in each direction

Nice video. I love the idea of open software, but come on, having to design a freaking PDIP is ridiculous, and the library system is. By now we should have very simple PCB designer, with create PCB size layout. Drag components onto PCB. Connect wires. View and check. Create Gerber files.

I think the names front and back are completly random. I don't think there is any process in the fabrication of a pcb where the top layer is actually on the front. PCB's are produced horizontally, so it should be top and bottom. And i think in some places in kicad its top and bottom, its kinda inconsistant there.

Excellent

ive spent hours trying to figure out how to add a pad using kicad 5.0, can you please tell me how to add a simple smd pad in pcbnew, thank you

The footprint library in DipTrace is far better! You can also see the footprint AND the pad and their numbering. With KiCad not. I just get freaking errors 29 of them!!! R3 Pad not found in footprint. It had pads when I made it.

Saving to your library has changed: 1. Go to File -> Save footprint in New library 2. Go to Preferences -> Footprints Library Wizard -> Select "Files on My Computer" -> Browse to your library folder you created (with .pretty end) -> Click next, next & finish 3. Go to File -> Set Active Library -> Select your Library you created (same as folder name) 4. To save Footprint - > Ctrl + S or Go to File and "Save Footprint in Active Library"

Hi, İ have a problem with footprint i am trying to fix the footprint on the pcb but they are in different places. İ dont know how that i should to fit the footprint into pcb. İ would be very gratefull when u could help me. Thank you very much.

The program looks good, but for the love of God, to create a simple component of this has this absurd amount of steps .. in Proteus this compnente takes 1 minute to be done ... Why do not you have an option to create a square ??? You have to create 4 lines ??? I tried to make a footprint of a Jack P2 and it was hell because the pads have very different positionals ... anyway ... zero productivity.

Why only Ffab and Fsilk? Why you did not add a Fcrtyd?

why local if you plan to use it everywhere ?????

Very super bro

im trying to make footprint for icl7107 ic can u plz help me ?

how to measure the drill size

Where can I get the music?

What about the 3d model?

Hi, I just came up with idea and I want to plant a seed - a plugin automatically downloading a footprint of every Digi-Key element attached to a schematic representation - you know, to make a project I sometimes have to search for footprints in Internet and in would be more convinient to buy Digi-Key products if those would have been automatically attached. Also a feature, that allows you to make your project with Digi-Key elements only.

I don't have an option to save footprint into library. 3:47

This KiCad drives me crazy. I wanted to place a resistor and assign TO247-2 horizontal, it us 4 hours now that I am on that, I give up and keep doing all in Altium, it takes 60s and the 3D pcb can be seen. Kicad is none intuitive, simplest things need intensive research and self figuring out, reminds me on Eagle, sorry even as it is open source, Altium is the way to go.

I used to think OrCad was complicated. :-)

You should probably explain what each f.silk, b.silk and etc meant first.

I'm on KICAD 5.x.x and this video helps a little bit, but is out of date ... we need an up to date video. I think I am going to be lost after 5:00

why the hell did you use imperial?

best when played at 0.25speed. SLOW DOWN BRO

Enter 16 numbers to draw a rectangle, instead of 4. No rectangle tool? This software is a joke

Nor do I have Append with Wizard 4:30

I hope there are better ways to do this, because this is awful. Also, the convention is a square pad for pin 1 on a through-hole DIP. SERIOUSLY, this is the most convoluted footprint creation process I have ever seen. It makes PADS PCB look like child's play. Yuck.

so long winded got to be abtter way!

Decent tutorial, but who else went "WTF?" when he change d pin 1 back to a circle?

Why tf is there microsoft edge on your taskbar? xD