I’ve come up with a small circuit for which I would like to design a pcb. I’ve never done circuit board layout before (not on a computer, and what I did was a LONG time ago).
So, I’m thinking about hiring someone to design the board for me.
Anyone around here that might be able to help me out?
John Rayfield, Jr.
When I started with KiCad (about 10 years ago) the “Getting started in KiCad” manual was excellent, and with it I designed my first PCB in the same afternoon I installed KiCad. After that this manual got seriously out of sync (Because of huge improvements in KiCad itself), and recently this document got an update / rewrite. I’m not sure how good it is now though.
A bit of a problem with hiring someone is that a lot of communication is needed. If you can’t draw the schematic, it’s difficult to describe what you want on it, and if you draw the schematic (in KiCad 
) then you are already 1/3 to a finished project. There is also a lot of communication needed for PCB size, connector layout, mounting holes and other details.
Because of all those details, it easily takes days to get a simple project done in this way. It probably takes more time than if you learn KiCad yourself. And on top of that. There are not many people in line to spend hours on someone else’s project.
Readers who want to respond are encouraged to use the Private Message feature of the forum to contact jrayfield instead of publishing their contact details publicly. OP, you might consider also posting in the Help wanted section of EEVblog forum. Maybe you might enjoy learning to design your own PCBs. There are lot of online resources for learning.
If the circuit is small than try to do it yourself then post here screen shots of your project and the project zipped and you will certainly get suggestions what can be done better.
Wow! Thanks for all the help and suggestions. A friend of mine told me that there was a lot of help on the forums and he was sure right about that. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a community forum of any kind with this much help, this quickly.
I do have the footprints of most of the parts set up. The only thing I’m having trouble with is setting up some holes to which wires will be connected, such as for power, ground and a panel mount switch. I’ll take a look at the Getting Started manual and see if that helps there. Otherwise, I’ll show you all what I’ve got so far and see what you can show me.
Thanks!
John
You can use simple connector symbols, or any other schematic symbol you think looks nice (TestPoint, Mounting hole with Pad, etc) and then assign a suitable footprint.
It is however not a good idea to directly solder wires to the PCB. The reason is that the “end” of the solder will create a stress riser point where the wires break relatively easy. If you do want to solder the wires, then make sure the wires have not continuous bending stress at that point. You can for example glue them or use tie raps or even just put them though a mechanical hole.
With elastic wires (multi-wire cable - I’m not sure the right word, and Google translator don’t helps) and not moved too often I see no problem with soldering them directly to PCB PTH hole.
It is indeed not catastrophic, and when it’s board to board wiring inside some enclosure it does not matter much at all. But it is a weak point that sometimes leads to troubles.
When I lay out parts on the board from the schematic, and then I want to move the parts around, I find that some of them aren’t lining up with other parts on the grid. It’s almost like some parts are on one grid and other parts are on another grid.
What’s causing this and how can it be ‘fixed’ so that all parts are on a .1 inch grid?
John
When you move a footprint, you can either grab it by it’s center, or by a pad, and the point that you grabbed the footprint by is put on the grid.
I think in KiCad library:
So from that point of view there are 4 kinds of footprints. When different kind footprints are set in grid with their reference points they look being not lining. We don’t know what footprints do you use.
Picture says more than thousand of words. Show us the problems you describe (you can drag a graphic file (screen shot) into your post).
When in 2017 I moved from Protel to KiCad I at the same time changed my working grid from 5 mils to 0.1mm (internally KiCad counts in metric system).
Between the two of you I think I understand. I’m getting the impression that Kicad is pretty intuitive.
John
So now I have the parts from the schematic in the PCB Editor. There aren’t any errors when it loads everything from the schematic, however, when I run the Design Rules Checker, I get a long list of “unconnected items” showing up. Here’s the list:
.
DRC.rpt (10.7 KB)
And here’s the board:
ALC-TDA7284.kicad_pcb (225.2 KB)
Why is the list showing missing connections where it looks like there are connections?
John
You haven’t yet drawn the copper tracks that connect the pads of your components. The lines you see are called ratsnest lines and indicate where a track is needed.
I tinkered a bit with your PCB:
Some remarks…
2024-03-13_ALC-TDA7284.zip (79.5 KB)
Paul beat me and provided a near finished product. Look on my below post as explanations as to some of the function he has used.
Steep learning curve time unfortunately 
This link will help https://docs.kicad.org/. Consume it all 
Above is part of your project.
Kicad uses ratlines to show you which pads need connecting together. You need to draw the tracks.
You set the track widths (magenta arrow)
The layer on which you are drawing tracks (green arrow)
The grid you need to use (yellow arrow)
The tool to draw tracks (cyan arrow)
Everything on the board has a color. You will find the color key in the Layers and Objects of the Appearance Manager (red arrow).
I’ve drawn a few tracks as examples. Note the different sides and thicknesses.
The aim is to get rid of all the ratlines by replacing them with tracks. The tracks are not allowed to cross each other unless they are on different sides. You will probably find to successfully lay out the board, you will need to relocate some of the footprints to different positions.
This is the very, very, very basics.
Have fun!
DRC checks if the PCB is finished correctly. Until it is not finished or finished but not correctly you will get lot of warnings and Errors.
I’m not playing with your PCB as I have KiCad at my working PC that (to be save) is not connected with Internet and here (Win7 PC) I have only KiCad V5.
I am designing 2 layer PCBs with bottom layer whole being GND and all other connections (supply and signals) at top layer.
From my point of view correct footprint placement is 80% (or more) of work with PCB. The task is - how to place/rotate them all to allow to route all tracks without need to use bottom layer (if not possible I add some 0R resistors).
What I want to say is: Place connectors, LEDs, switches at places where they have to be, but all other elements place in such a way to then have a routing as simple as possible. Connection lines help to find such arrangement. As I have GND everywhere one via from me I hide GND connection lines when I do placement to see only connections I will have to route. In most cases PCB need not to have any organised order of elements.
Having full GND at bottom and making connections short make your design more robust to disturbances (since we have cell-phones strong disturbances are everywhere).
So the Design Rules Checker isn’t showing connections based on the schematic, but based on copper connections. Makes sense.
John
Later on it can check that the layout is in parity with the schematic.
If you really wanted to say ‘showing’ and not ‘checking’ then you probably miss something.
Connections (at PCB) are shown based on schematic and DRC checks connections you made (tracks) also based on schematic (netlist obtained from schematic and shown in PCB in the form of connection lines). When you update PCB from schematic then connection lines simply follow what is at schematic and there is no idea to check by program if what it just did is correctly done. Of course there can be bugs in program but it is not the user who should get a check resource to search for such bugs. If in spreadsheet you write the formula in one cell you don’t have a DRC to check if what was calculated by that cell was calculated correctly.
