Is there any video which would show someone who’s experienced in using KiCad designs some very simple board + one custom component with the goal of doing this fast? All videos I’ve found are aimed at beginners but I wanted to see how fast can an experienced user go.
Since I’m used to working with Eagle I’ve got pretty fast with it and work with commands for almost everything which is a huge speed gain… I know that there are shortcuts for most of things with KiCad so it should be theoretically possible to get up to a reasonable pace of designing a PCB with it, but I’m curious how fast can it actually be?
There’s a few tricks which are really handy, particularly key shortcuts like Tab and Insert in eeschema, but there is not the command interface that Eagle has. Usually the time consuming bit for me is creating custom footprints from datasheets.
For simple boards, I have code to generate them. For example, I can generate a whole bunch of custom sized proto-boards in a few seconds. Writing the code takes a while of course. I like using tri-pad board, but it is expensive and I can only find one supplier. I figure it is probably cheaper to get boards made in China to my spec.
Can you give any examples of projects that might be suitable for a speed challenge?
challenge 1)
pick a component (link the datasheet)
film yourself how you go about creating it (symbol+footprint)
challenge 2)
pick a schematic with a handful of components
make sure all symbols/footprints are available
draw the schematic
draw the layout
If there are any special things that need to be obeyed (netclass settings, track widths, etc. pp.) make clear if those should be part of the challenge or not.
PS: the simper you make it, the more participants you probably will have.
PPS: can’t hurt to first search a tool (windows/linux/mac) that’s let’s you record this, so this becomes comparable.