hello forum members,
I am working in Kicad 9.0 to design a PDB for a F450 quadcopter, but how do I start. Can someone help me with that? And how do you connect to a VBAT label? I have tried that too but I can’t do it either.
Thanks in advance for all the help!
Greetings from Herman
That’s a vague question. Have you already read the Getting Started in KiCad document?
Hallo eelik,
nee, dat heb ik nog niet gelezen, is dat over KiCad 9.0? mijn vraag is eigenlijk , ik wil met KiCad 9.0 een PDB ontwerpen voor een F450 Quadcopter. maar ik was een beetje begonnen met hulp van chatgpt, maar op een gegeven moment moest ik een Label genoemd VBAT plaatsen op het groene vierkantje van de groene lijn om dan zo verbinding te maken, maar het lukt mijn niet om te verbinden.
We communicate mainly in English here, please attach a translation of your message (machine translation is OK, but translating is the responsibility of the poster).
Hello eelik,
no, I haven’t read that yet, is that about KiCad 9.0? my question is actually, I want to design a PDB for a F450 Quadcopter with KiCad 9.0. but I had started a bit with help from chatgpt, but at a certain point I had to place a Label called VBAT on the green square of the green line to then connect, but I can’t connect.
So read it first.
When in 2017 I wanted to use KiCad I have started from reading all manuals from: https://docs.kicad.org before installing KiCad itself.
If you have never done a circuit/PCB before, it maybe tempting to use an “AI” but trust me when I say it cannot generate you a valid working circuit based upon a human conversation… AI returns the average of a topic, thats all… Now an AGI maybe, just MAYBE… but there is a fundamental scalability and power issue (AI is going to exceed the power draw of Bitcoin this year and we are not building enough nuclear plants to keep up with heavy industry let alone datacentres…).
My advice, read the introduction of Kicad, its pretty good, especially this part
Getting Started in KiCad | 9.0 | English | Documentation | KiCad
In short, the “green” is the net in the schematic capture (eeschema) and “labels” link nets (like GOTO in code)
Using the Label tool ( letter A above a line on the right toolbar) you can then click on hte green square to “link”
Gosh, probably the first time ever that I see my native language on this forum. Quite a shock.
If you have trouble with connecting a label to a wire, then this is most likely caused by some items being off grid. KiCad is quite peculiar about the grid in the schematic editor. KiCad creates connections purely by the coordinates of objects being right on top of each other. KiCad only works on a relatively coarse grid. If you set the grid too fine, then making connections becomes quite difficult. And the best compromise is to set the grid to 50mil (25mil or 10mil is also doable). If you don’t like the banana units, then think of them as Don Quixote units. (Also on Gutenberg) But whatever you call it, just set it to 50 mil and leave it there.
If your grid was anything different, then zoom out after setting the grid to 50mil, then draw a big box around your whole schematic to select everything, do a right click and then Align elements to grid from the context menu. There is a (rare) gotcha with this. Sometimes aligning items on the grid creates some shorts, because line ends that first were on separate coordinates get mapped to the same coordinate. So check your design for that. (I.e. export netlist before and after, and then compare them).
This was also a very common and recurring question a few years ago. But recently it does not get asked very much anymore. I see KiCad V8 only has predefined grids of 100 / 50 / 25 / 10mil. (**Schematic Editor / Preferences / Preferences / Schematic Editor / Grids).
The PCB editor does not have such grid issues. It can use any grid you like.
The Getting Started document can be read through pretty quickly to get grasp of the general workflow. It doesn’t of course answer all questions, not even beginner questions.
This specific question is answered in the Schematic Editor manual: https://docs.kicad.org/9.0/en/eeschema/eeschema.html#labels.
One thing is for sure, you don’t start with KiCad to design a circuit. You use KiCad to layout a PCB.
Get a pen/pencil and a piece of paper and draw a block diagram of the electronics for your circuit, then from that progress to component selection and the onto reading all the datasheets to find out how stuff connects to each other . . . then eventually you open KiCad to draw your schematic so you can then layout the PCB.
You don’t start with KiCad.
I have to say I was nonplussed by the acronym PDB.
Protein Data Base? I don’t think so
Poor Dumb Bastard? Um, no
I added quadcopter to the search terms and got it: Power Distribution Board!
As RaptorUK says, making a PCB is just a part of the overall design effort. Newbies sometimes start off with the impression that KiCad is all you need for the whole project. After all, you can draw a schematic, simulate it (some of the time), and generate files for a PCBA to make boards with components soldered on, so everything covered, right? Um, no.
Hallo Paulvdh,
dank je wel voor deze informatie ! ja top eindelijk iemand die uit Nederland komt .
ja, ik ben een beetje begonnen met KiCad , het is wel een mooi programma, maar nog wel moeilijk vind ikzelf. ik wil eigenlijk een pcb ontwerp maken van een ESP32 met KiCad 9, maar ik ben op zoek naar een goede you tube tutorial. ik zie er wel wat op staan, maar ik weet niet welke daarvan goed is. misschien kan jij mijn daarover een tip geven?
alvast vriendelijk dank Paul voor alle informatie!
groet van Herman
There are probably more people from the Netherlands here, but this forum standardized on English, so (nearly) anyone can follow the conversations, search functions work better, and also for the moderators, who read all messages and delete spam and other offensive stuff (that does happen, but usually it’s deleted within 10 minutes).
Many Dutch people also easily adjust to English, so even if you don’t notice it, they still remain Dutch.
For the ESP tutorials. A PCB is a PCB. The tutorial does not have to be about the ESP. The Wifi chips only have some special considerations for the clearance around the antenna. For the rest it’s just a microcontroller board. But I advise to start a bit more abstract. First do a few mini projects, for example for an NE555 blinking LED. The circuit does not even have to work at all. This allows you do focus completely on learning KiCad. If you gain some confidence after a few mini projects, then it’s time to start on your first real PCB.
I don’t know which tutorials are good. It’s been over 10 years ago that I learned KiCad, and I also prefer written tutorials. I can go though them at my own pace, skip parts that are not interesting, or read interesting or complicated parts twice.
I just had a look at the KiCad documentation (At: https://docs.kicad.org/, but also installed with KiCad) It’s available in 10 different languages, but no Dutch. It’s a small country, but not that small, I guess it’s more an indication of how easily the Dutch switch to English (Or another language if you know it).