PCB designing using KiCAD – From Schematic to Gerber file

By Ajish Alfred

For the people who are doing PCB designing, hobbyist or professionals, there are so many PCB designer softwares available. Most popular among them are diptrace, orcad, eagle, kicad etc. This tutorial is mainly for those people who haven’t tried out any professional pcb designer software yet.

Here is a quick guide, which will help you to get started off with kiCAD. In this tutorial we will be considering a simple astable multivibrator circuit using 555 timer IC. We will be designing a pcb for this well known simple circuit. Let me tell you upfront that I’m not an expert in pcb designing. My intension is only to explain you the necessary steps required in kicad to convert a simple circuit diagram to a gerber file, and also some tips and things to be taken care while doing the designing.