It's not needed anymore. After finishing the schematic (or after making a change), save and go to the PCB editor. From there you can click on 'Update PCB from Schematic' from the Tools menu.
As others have said, this tutorial was just what the doctor ordered! I designed a couple of PCBs decades ago, and remembered it being fairly simple. I probably watched a half dozen or more tutorials before watching this one, and started a project, but I simply did not feel like I was getting anywhere. This 5 minute tutorial was better than the other 3 or 4 hours of tutorials I watched put together. There is a big difference between knowing how to do something and knowing how to teach it. Nicely done.
Thanks for the great tutorial! Have always been intimidated by PCB layout programs, but with your tutorial, I was able to make my first PCB. Really appreciate it!
This was what I was looking for. There many videos on RU-vid for doing this but the way they do it in their code...just really isn't how you would/should do it if you were a professional. My belief is this video is how it should be done and how a professional would do it. Thank you.
Fantastic video - everything I needed to know to get working on my (much larger) project in just over 5 minutes. This was exactly what I was looking for!
I've been looking for circuit design software for making reference schematics. I was drawn to Fritzing because of the visuals, but KiCad stood out as I heard it was better to learn in the long term (more professional use cases, and better for PCB manufacturing). Even though I'm not yet looking to make custom PCBs, great to know it's so easy to get started. Thanks for breaking it down so well. I'll be trying out KiCAD because of your tutorial.
Hey Oyvind, this video was a life-saver! I had KiCad install for about a month and I never used it until I saw your video. You spared me a lot of headaches - again! :) Thanks a lot!!
This was perfect as I was actually designed a very similar board (just replace the resistor with a mosfet, the battery with a JST connector, and move things around a bit). Checking out how to get it made next!
I'm coming to KiCAD after using Fusion 360's electronics design software. This tutorial was exactly what I needed. A bit of the functionality has changed since 2018 but I was still able to follow the tutorial with no problem in 2022. One nice change is you no longer seem to need to export and then import the net list in order to turn the schematic into a circuit board. Props on the great tutorial it's held up really well!
Great video, short and to the point. Regarding Kicad itself - I have little to no experience with PCB design, but Kicad leaves me with the impression of being several programs "under one roof", rather than one program.
@@Ohmify Here's an example of what I mean (please correct me if I'm wrong): when you go from Eeschema to Pcbnew, you have to explicitly import your circuit (together with footprints) by doing Tools -> Update PCB from Schematic. Why isn't this done automatically? What happens if I decide to go back to Eeschema and switch a footprint or five? Does this mean I have to redo Update PCB from Schematic again? Eeschema and Pcbnew behave as if they're two separate applications, when they make the user manage this data exchange between them manually. IMO this shouldn't even be visible to the user, should be and automated process running under the hood.
This program is surprisingly straightforward for a circuit board designer program. I might someday try having a through-hole board made if I can find a small-run (i.e. 10 or 15 boards) facility. I could do something generic enough that it could be pressed into service in many different applications, like an X channel ADC for the Raspberry Pi, a "motherboard" for an Arduino Mini / Micro / Nano that has I/O expanders and such, or whatever else I might come up with. One thing I thought of, that I couldn't find an already-made board for, was a multi-MOSFET driver board (like 8 outputs) that had a shift register as the control / input signal, so an Arduino Uno would be able to control 8 (insert high current DC load here)s and still have plenty of pins to spare.
@@dickcheney6 If you are located in the US and want dependable shipping, then OSHPark is US-based. PCBway and Seeed studio are CHina based, but I've ordered from them and gotten my PCB in a week here in Europe several times.
I really appreciate your videos and have downloaded KICAD based on how helpful and well you demonstrate the use of KICAD. I found it really easy to draw the first schematic, however, when I go into PCB mode I have problems with the wire not connecting to the component. So the components cannot be connected. It seems like the wire is sticking to the mouse cursor. I would really appreciate any advice or even a youtube clip on how to resolve this issue. Again, thank you for your fantastic videos.
In the PCB mode, you need to connect it the same way as in the schematics. You should see lines that show which point should be connected to another. If you try to connect things that are not connected in the schematics, you'll get the behavior that it seems you have.
Most likely it's because the component you use does not have a 3d model defined - or that the 3d model can't be found. Click on a footprint and go into Footprint Properties. Choose the 3D Settings tab and look at the 3D model(s) defined there. If there is one there, look at the location of it and verify if that file actually exists.
at 3:30 "perform electrical rule checker" in KiCad 7.02 it is giving me like 11 errors at every corner of the wire and at every connection, and the dashed line between the cells of the batter and even the line inside the LED.. what gives?
You choose the footprint that fits the physical component you are planning to buy. If you are planning to buy a through hole resistor, then choose a through-hole resistor. If you plan to buy a surface mount 1206 resistor, that's the footprint to use. One strategy is to just choose one, then try to find a component that fits when you order components. It becomes easier and more intuitive after you've built a few boards.
Perform electrical rules check generates 9 warnings in this example. We are snapping everything to the grid, so how does anything generate a "Warning: Symbol Pin or Wire End Off Grid" error? And moving symbols or wire ends anywhere on the grid does nothing, the Warnings persist.
I remember a student of mine had a similar problem. It was caused by importing a project from kicad 6 into kicad 7. His solution was to just redraw the circuit. But might be better solutions out there.
The library names have changed since I made this video. Pin headers are in Connector_PinHeader_2.54mm (other pin spacings exist too). The LED library is called LED_THT.
Great tutorial, short and to the point. A couple of things I would like to mention though - in my version of KiCad ("5.0.0+dfsg1-2, release build", running on Kubuntu 18.10:1) resistor value is printed next to the resistor, not inside it;2) "LED" and LED annotation are printed horizontally, not vertically;3) I don't have PIN headers library, but I do have several libraries named "Connector_PinHeader_1.00mm", "Connector_PinHeader_1.27mm", "Connector_PinHeader_2.00mm", "Connector_PinHeader_2.54mm", they must have changed that for whatever reason.4) 3D preview of the PCB shows just the board, without components - no resistor, LED or battery connector.
The reason this is happening is because this tutorial was made with KiKad version 4 and you're using version 5. I fell into the same problems you did. The last point about the PCB not being populated in the 3d viewer didn't happen to me though...
@@randomviewer896 I'm not sure, but it seems I do - (here's the list of KiCad packages I have on my system) $ sudo apt list | grep kicad kicad-common/cosmic,cosmic 5.0.0+dfsg1-2 all kicad-demos/cosmic,cosmic,now 5.0.0+dfsg1-2 all [installed,automatic] ... skpped kicad docs, etc ... kicad-footprints/cosmic,cosmic,now 5.0.0-1 all [installed,automatic] kicad-libraries/cosmic,cosmic,now 5.0.0+dfsg1-2 all [installed,automatic] kicad-packages3d/cosmic,cosmic 5.0.0-1 all kicad-symbols/cosmic,cosmic,now 5.0.0-1 all [installed,automatic] kicad-templates/cosmic,cosmic,now 5.0.0-1 all [installed,automatic] kicad/cosmic,now 5.0.0+dfsg1-2 amd64 [installed] kicad/cosmic 5.0.0+dfsg1-2 i386 I must have missed a step somewhere along the way when creating my first PCB, but never mind, i'll figure it out eventually. Just need to play with KiCad more.
@@randomviewer896 Actually, I have looked at those packages again, and this time I have noticed that kicad-packages3d does not have "installed" next to it. So I did a quick 'sudo apt install kicad-packages3d', and voila! Components are now in 3D viewer too. Who would have guessed you _can_ have the viewer installed, but not its assets. So thank you for your suggestion!
Try File->Board Setup... and choose Net Classes if you want to define the size for the different nets. Or Tracks & Vias if you just want to set up some predefined sizes.
