Design with KiCad

Quick, systematic, and complete course to learn KiCad for your PCB design.

4.55 (306 reviews)

Udemy

platform

English

language

Hardware

What you will learn

The course was updated for KiCad 7 which was released on 12 Feb 2023

Using KiCad for Printed Circuit Board design.

Starting from schematics to the ready to manufacture designs.

Using the schematics editor and the PCB Layout Editor for generating ready to manufacture designs.

Using Electrical Rule Checker(ERC) and Design Rule Checker (DRC)

General Idea about PCB types.

Calculating tracks widths and spacing using KiCad Calculator.

PCB design beyond connoting pads and tracks.

BOM generation and sending designs to manufacturers and a look at the manufactured boards.

3D View of the project and exporting to 3D design software

Course ends with two real projects.

Why take this course?

This course will teach you in a systematic way how to use KiCad 6 for your PCB (Printed Circuit Board) design, it will take you from not knowing the software to making a development board at the final project without overwhelming you with a large number of hours of videos to watch.

The approach to teach is in creating a simple project while learning the different parts of the software, then adding up to that project in the following sections, and when the student gets familiar with it the other parts like menus, sub-menus and tool bars are explained.

The main project in the course is to create REV1 of a two phase bipolar stepper motor controller then students are asked to create REV2 with different requirements and motor.

The last project is about creating a development board and routing it using an auto router with the guidance of the videos and lectures in the final section. There are photos of of the manufactured printed circuit boards created in this course in the different sections.

Special attention was given to the audio and video quality while creating the course for a smooth transition between lectures. The music at the end of every lecture is a hint of the end. Also, a great effort was done to average the lecture at 5 minutes.

The purpose of the quiz in the course is not to grade students but to open the eyes on important facts and a subject to google and learn more out of the course scope.

Whether PCD design is a requirement or a hobby for you, you are going to enjoy the course!

Screenshots

Reviews

Paul

October 18, 2023

Good course, but lots of wasted time in videos and more explanations and insights into board design would have been useful.

Tim

October 9, 2023

Wissam very thoroughly covered all KiCAD features are usage, and even added in information about using an external auto-routing tool. Very Good. As a side effect of the thoroughness, the course moves a bit slow in places, but you can always skip ahead.

Janosch

June 29, 2023

Könnte man kürzer fassen. Außerdem wird vom Autor am Anfang geworben wie viel Zeit er in die Audioqualität gesteckt hat und erwänht sehr häufig das Wort "Eh" als Lückenfüller. Des Weiteren könnte er für seine Folien ein konstantes Design wählen, sowie übliche/standartisierte Komponenten für die Folie wählen. @Udemy, wenn ihr eure Qualität eurer Platform erhöhen wollt, dann stellt doch euren Autoren von euch erarbeitet Designs, Folien und Schulungsaufbauten bereit.

Mohanned

June 13, 2023

Loved the course. I don't think there is a better option when it comes to introduction to Kicad on Udemy.

John

May 22, 2023

great content and great progression/pace...rarely do I grasp concepts this easily. If you ever remake the series maybe figure out a way to override the software's cursor. Perhaps choose a larger mouse or even a color an animated mouse. The large crosshairs within the cad model, and schematic were easy to track however it seems when inside the menu, or the footer, and certainly within the many calculators the software changed the cursor to a tiny 6~8px cursor??? I'm not sure why I had a hard time maybe because there is so much granular detail clearly visible on the screen that at certain times when diving into the menus, toolbars, and calculators I had to pause and locate the mouse. I did not find myself needing to pause to hear the lesson one more time. Great teaching skills!

Rejanio

May 20, 2023

Ok! Veja! Ok! Veja! zzzzzzz! Apesar de ser completo, as aulas são terrivelmente enfadonhas. O professor conseguiu pegar um assunto empolgante e transformá-lo num Ok! Veja! Ok! Veja! cansativo. Uma pena!

Joshua

May 7, 2023

Enjoyable and educational look at KiCAD. I started course during KiCAD 6 and there was some differences with KiCAD 7, but nothing you can't google. I liked the fact that every aspect of KiCAD was covered because often times you dont know a thing is there and having an overview of the different options help.

Renson

May 7, 2023

I am currently taking this course since this is what I planned to become my career. The explanation of each video is very efficient, meaning it is both brief and defined.

Nishant

April 21, 2023

it is indeed a superb course for learning KiCad from scratch. The best part was auto routing tool, which was not introduced earlier and i kept doing my project manually. Thans a lot

Sriram

March 16, 2023

I would have liked more detail on the electronics side, such as why certain options exist (such as adding a PWR_FLAG) and not just "let's add it and see the error go away". Some options have changed in KiCad 7, such as Net Classes which wasn't covered correctly and I had to Google it. The section on the edge cuts and adding a Filled Zone seemed rushed and in some cases unnecessarily complicated. For example, rounded edges on a rectangular edge cut is an option in KiCad, way easier than doing a three-point arc and fiddling with the grid alignment. The last section about auto-routing could have been done a bit better as well. I installed the Layout Editor software as per the video, but he then just extracts the freerouting jar from it. On Mac this isn't possible, but you could directly download the latest version of freerouting from GitHub instead. Some footprints that were used in the videos weren't available by default anymore in KiCad, and the resources were of a really poor resolution. Overall, it was a good start for using KiCad for PCB design, but this course isn't a "PCB design with KiCad as a vehicle" but a "Beginner's introduction to KiCad", which is probably a mistake on my part.

Andy

March 10, 2023

Content is good and pace is OK. Would prefer if the presenter had worked out and practiced some of the steps beforehand, rather than work out what is happening in the middle of a video. This is advertised as being recently updated to KiCad 7, but the examples were done using v6.

Sebastien

February 25, 2023

too much time about minutiae of the tool (multiple videos about preferences....) these can be easily found in the help. Videos are way too short..... no need to chop up videos for those who have the attention span of poodles

Ray

January 25, 2023

Other than occasionally hitting the table with your hand, the video and audio qualities are excellent.

Adam

January 1, 2023

Great course! Solid and thorough explanation of the software. Information is well organized for review if necessary.

yorozuyamochimaru

December 29, 2022

Excellent course, you will be able to learn most all of what KiCAD can do to start, utilize and design your own PCB using KiCAD

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