Two Newbie Questions

Software
1

I just installed kicad on Windows 10. The version I downloaded is 6.0.0. I’ve been looking at tutorial videos and the FAQs on the forums.

Two questions.

  1. Why don’t i see the Annotate icon on the top? The FAQs say it should be there. It is not. All the video’s I’ve watched have this little pencil on paper icon, mine does not. I searched under preferences thinking I could add it. I do not see this option.

  2. I have created a simple schematic and want to try the spice simulation. When I click inspect-simulator a dialog pops up but keeps telling me something to the effect of “no circuit loaded” I would have assumed it would load the circuit currently on my screen. It seems to be asking me to “open” something but I don’t know what is going on. How do I get the circuit I just drew to be recognized by the spice simulator? Do I need to install something else in addition to KiCad 6.0.0? FAQs are very confusing in this respect.

Thanks a lot for any help.
73 Eugene W2HX

2

KiCad 6 was released around 25th December 21. Most of the tutorials you will find are for older versions (mainly 5 and some even older 4). Unfortunately, most tutorial authors fail to mention the version used and there are very few tutorials for 6 yet. However, the workflow between 5 and 6 is not markedly different although the icons have been updated. There is an annotate icon on the top with a R?? to R42 icon.

3

aah! ok! I see that icon. Thanks for the explanation!!!

4

For spice simulation, you will almost certainly have to add some simulation models to run a simulation.

I’d recommend working through this tutorial: KiCad Eeschema as GUI for ngspice, tutorial for setting up the simulation

It’s written for version 5, but I think pretty much everything should still be relevant.

5

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