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KiCad — Beginner to Advanced

If you only do one thing

Treat the schematic as the source of truth. Every PCB problem traces back to either a wrong schematic or a missed step in the schematic → footprint → board handoff. Don't edit the PCB to "fix" something that should be fixed in the schematic.

Read Usage before starting the Tutorial

KiCad has its own mental model — projects, libraries, and the schematic-to-PCB pipeline. Skip Usage and you'll get lost in the Footprint Assignment dialog wondering why nothing connects.

A full guide to KiCad as a free, GPL-licensed EDA (Electronic Design Automation) suite. Covers the complete pipeline from schematic capture to fabrication outputs, plus the conceptual side of PCB design — stackups, impedance, manufacturing constraints, and the tradeoffs that don't show up until your first board comes back wrong.

Scope

  • Schematic capture — symbols, nets, hierarchical sheets, ERC.
  • Footprint assignment — symbol/footprint relationships, library tables.
  • PCB layout — placement, routing, copper zones, design rules.
  • Board setup — layer stackups, net classes, manufacturer constraints.
  • Custom libraries — drawing your own symbols, footprints, and 3D models.
  • Fabrication outputs — Gerbers, drill files, BOM, pick-and-place.
  • PCB design fundamentals — what a PCB is before what KiCad does with one.

Sections

  1. Quickstart — install, open, blink an LED schematic in 30 minutes
  2. Usage — the four editors, libraries, projects, essential shortcuts
  3. Tutorial — Level 1 (LED + resistor) → Level 5 (multi-layer mixed-signal board)
  4. Practice Schedule — daily / weekly cadence to actually finish a board
  5. Examples — concrete projects at each level
  6. Best Practices — conventions, manufacturing pitfalls, DFM habits
  7. Learning — curated resources

The single most important mental model

KiCad is a pipeline, not an editor.

The pipeline is: Schematic → Footprint Assignment → PCB Layout → Fabrication Outputs. Each stage takes the previous stage as input. Forward annotation pushes schematic changes into the PCB; back annotation pushes PCB-side cleanups (like swapped pin numbers) back to the schematic.

  • Symbols live in the schematic and represent electrical behavior.
  • Footprints live on the PCB and represent the physical pad geometry.
  • A symbol → footprint link is what turns a wire into a copper trace.

Most beginner confusion ("I drew a connection but DRC says nothing's connected") is a broken link in this pipeline — usually an unannotated symbol, a missing footprint assignment, or a forgotten Update PCB from Schematic.

The PCB editor is not a drawing program. It's a physical realization of the schematic netlist. Treat it that way.