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KiCad — Learning

Curated. Not exhaustive — just the resources that are actually worth your time, organized by where you are in the learning curve.

Official documentation

  • KiCad Getting Started — official walk-through. The single most underused resource by beginners.
  • Schematic Editor manual — reference, not a tutorial. Use as a lookup.
  • PCB Editor manual — same. The chapter on Board Setup and Stackup is essential before designing 4-layer.
  • KiCad Forum — high signal-to-noise. Search before posting; the answer usually exists.

Video — beginner

  • Phil's Lab — the most coherent KiCad-on-YouTube curriculum. Start with his STM32 board series; it's a masterclass in layout reasoning, not button-pushing.
  • Robert Feranec — long-form courses, often free. Especially strong on signal integrity and 4-layer.
  • Digi-Key's KiCad series — 9 episodes, official-ish, covers the full pipeline cleanly.

Video — intermediate / advanced

  • Shawn Hymel @ Digi-Key — introductions to specific topics (USB, ESP32, debouncing, etc.) with KiCad layouts.
  • The Signal Path — bench-style RF and high-speed work. Not a KiCad channel, but watching how an EE thinks rewires your design intuition.
  • Eric Bogatin (lectures, papers) — the signal-integrity teacher. Look up his "Rule of Thumb" series.

Books

  • Phil's Lab — Hardware Design with KiCad (2024) — the only KiCad-specific book worth buying. Tracks his YouTube series.
  • Henry W. Ott — Electromagnetic Compatibility Engineering — the textbook on EMI / grounding. Long, dense, worth it. Read after Tutorial Level 3.
  • Howard Johnson, Martin Graham — High-Speed Digital Design: A Handbook of Black Magic — the classic on signal integrity. Older but the physics doesn't change.
  • Robert Pease — Troubleshooting Analog Circuits — old, charming, and full of the war stories that turn into intuition.
  • Hank Zumbahlen — Linear Circuit Design Handbook — Analog Devices' reference. Free PDF online.

Datasheets that double as tutorials

When the part you're using has a Recommended Layout section, that section IS the tutorial. Especially read:

  • Texas Instruments TPS / LM series regulators — every datasheet has an exemplary layout figure.
  • Analog Devices op-amp datasheets — gold for analog board layout.
  • Microchip / STM32 reference manuals — the "minimum design" sections show the ground truth for MCU support circuitry.
  • JLCPCB Capabilities & Stackups — jlcpcb.com/capabilities — read this before designing for them.

Tools and references

  • Saturn PCB Toolkit — free Windows app for impedance, current capacity, via thermal calculations. Old UI, accurate math.
  • KiCad-StepUp — FreeCAD workbench for round-tripping mechanical designs.
  • InteractiveHtmlBom — generates a clickable BOM/board view for assembly. Install as a KiCad plugin.
  • OctoPart — multi-distributor part search. Use it for sourcing checks before you commit to a footprint.
  • GrabCAD — free 3D STEP files for nearly every common part.
  • Component Search Engine (Samacsys / Ultra Librarian) — symbols + footprints + 3D models for tens of thousands of parts. Worth signing up.

Open-source hardware to read

Communities

  • KiCad Forum — official, well-moderated.
  • r/PrintedCircuitBoard — submit your layout for free critique. Frighteningly good feedback.
  • r/AskElectronics — for the electrical, not the layout side.
  • EEVblog forum — older crowd, deep expertise on analog and RF.

What to skip

  • Eagle-to-KiCad migration tutorials unless you're literally migrating. They date fast and bias toward Eagle's mental model.
  • AI-generated PCB tutorial sites. Many exist; nearly all are wrong about subtle things (clearances, stackups, layer-stackup terminology).
  • Random "10 KiCad tips" articles. Read the official manual sections instead — same content, no ad-tech.

Where to put your hours

A rough weighting that worked for me:

  • 50% — finishing boards. Nothing else moves the needle as much.
  • 20% — reading datasheets of parts you're using.
  • 15% — watching one focused video tutorial per week.
  • 10% — reading other people's open-source schematics.
  • 5% — fiddling with KiCad settings and plugins.

If your weights look like the inverse of this (i.e., 50% on tools and tweaks), step away from the screen and go solder something.