A February Project (starting January 31)
What’s the big idea?
For 30 days, do something in KiCAD. What that something looks like is all up to you.
The 30 days project was inspired by Sophy Wong’s 31 Days of Fusion 360 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9jChZtsVhA and Malcom Gladwell’s 10,000 hour proposition https://www.newyorker.com/sports/sporting-scene/complexity-and-the-ten-thousand-hour-rule
While I am not a complete beginner and have tinkered with KiCad casually, I find myself having to relearn quite a bit when I come back since many months usually pass between projects. Generally I am hoping to improve my fluency and muscle memory in the software, and to expand my experience by working through a small project without any deadline pressure.
Wait, I’m New! What even IS KiCAD?
"A Cross Platform and Open Source Electronics Design Automation Suite"
OK…
Electronic design automation (EDA), also referred to as electronic computer-aided design (ECAD),[1] is a category of software tools for designing electronic systems such as integrated circuits and printed circuit boards (PCBs). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_design_automation
So in short, KiCad is a tool for creating custom circuit boards and PCB Art, including electronic badges. #badgelife.
There are other tools out there, but I am mainly interested in focusing on KiCad for now. It’s free, open source, and a pretty awesome tool once you get going.
Here are some projects designed in KiCad:
https://kicad-pcb.org/made-with-kicad/
And Hackaday's look at the BadgeLife scene:
https://hackaday.com/2018/08/20/badgelife-the-hardware-demoscene
https://hackaday.com/tag/badgelife/
Here are some great resources for getting started:
SAINTCON 2019 - Steve Ball - Getting started with KiCad - designing your first minibadge (41 min talk)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNXdtRxGEis
Chris Gammell at Contextual Electronics has a great starter project, building a custom component for the Raspberry Pi: https://contextualelectronics.com/courses/shine-on-you-crazy-kicad/
Getting to Blinky 5.0 - full tutorial series, also from Contextual Electronics:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLy2022BX6EspFAKBCgRuEuzapuz_4aJCn
Sparkfun Beginners Guide to KiCad
https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/beginners-guide-to-kicad/all
Digi-Key KiCad Series
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEBQazB0HUyR24ckSZ5u05TZHV9khgA1O
KiCad also has plenty of tutorials to work through
https://kicad-pcb.org/help/tutorials/
What's next?
More KiCad! More tinkering! More Schematics and Designs! Run DRC. Then Run DRC some more.
Build an SAO Board.
Create a design for an electronic badge or PCB art piece.
Send your design to a fabrication shop and bring that baby to life!
A Brief Collection of Links and Bookmarks
Note that some links below reference older versions of KiCad.
Read the Manual!
https://docs.kicad-pcb.org/5.1.5/en/getting_started_in_kicad/getting_started_in_kicad.html
https://github.com/KiCad
PCB Art Guides
Hackaday
https://hackaday.com/2016/11/17/creating-a-pcb-in-everything-kicad-part-1/
https://hackaday.com/2016/12/09/creating-a-pcb-in-everything-kicad-part-2/
https://hackaday.com/2016/12/23/creating-a-pcb-in-everything-kicad-part-3/
Community Guides
http://blog.komar.be/making-pcb-artwork-in-kicad/
https://medium.com/@urish/a-practical-guide-to-designing-pcb-art-b5aa22926a5c
https://medium.com/@oshpark/pcb-artwork-in-2017-715fdab5fa00
https://fludwerks.com/2018/12/12/making-cool-kicad-artwork/
Converting Art into Designs
Note: There are various tools for converting SVG drawings to PCB designs/footprints
svg2mod
https://github.com/mtl/svg2mod
svg2shenzen
https://github.com/badgeek/svg2shenzhen
guides and articles
https://blog.oshpark.com/2017/01/08/convert-inkscape-svg-drawings-to-kicad-footprints
https://andrehessling.de/2016/09/13/getting-a-custom-board-outline-from-an-svg-file-into-kicad
https://hackaday.io/project/18508-mr-robot-badge/log/53901-this-is-how-you-do-art-in-kicad
https://nitkin.net/2016/3/graphic-copper-kicad
http://blog.komar.be/making-pcb-artwork-in-kicad
http://andrewsowa.com/blog/2017/3/19/creating-the-benchoff-nickel
Note: I ended up having trouble getting this working that last time around and ended up using Bitmap2Component for my graphics. Sometime during this 30 day project I plan to figure out how to properly do SVG Conversions.
SAO Resources
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61NFK9KW_4s
https://hackaday.io/list/161121-shitty-add-ons-2018
https://hackaday.io/project/158664-krusty-the-it
Dealing with Components
Footprints http://kicad.txplore.com/index-p=157.html
Changing Parts http://store.curiousinventor.com/guides/kicad/pcb_layout/change_part
Gerber Files
Contextual Electronics - Getting to Blinky Gerbers Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSrw1zLJRb0&index=7&list=PLy2022BX6Eso532xqrUxDT1u2p4VVsg-q
Sparkfun Gerbers Tutorial
https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/beginners-guide-to-kicad/exporting-gerbers
Fabrication
Get your boards printed!
Osh Park
https://oshpark.com
JLC PCB
https://jlcpcb.com/
If you want to share your progress or follow along:
Syndicate Hashtag #30daysofkicad