What do you think about KiCAD for drawing schematics and creating PCBs?

[MJ_Sound_Cubed]

Hello All,

I am wondering if anyone is using KiCad for drawing schematics and creating PCBs?

Its available here: http://kicad-pcb.org

On the plus side:
- KiCad is free software and open source
- Its compatible with all the major operating systems like Windows, Mac OS and a lot of Linux distributions.
- Developed by CERNE
- A community and tutorials
- 3D modeling and lots of parts.

On the minus side:
-Lerning it can take some time, as much as any other.

Let me know what you guys think and suggest alternatives .

[MJ_Sound_Cubed]

KiCAD : Design schematics and PCBs for FREE?                                                                                             

[thesmokingman]

I found myself choosing kicad. first and foremost it is free. It does have more features like keyboard shortcuts and 3-d view. I get that eagle is more popular and I'm not here to say it is better than eagle because if I were already using eagle or another piece of software I'd be inclined to continue to use that rather than learn another program.

[gtr2]

If you are going to start on a CAD package start with Kicad or Diptrace (in my opinion).
As an Eagle CAD user, I'm actually working on learning other packages now, Altium (for high speed design work) and Kicad.
I have the legacy V7.7 Eagle CAD ultimate and actually unsubscribed to the newest versions of Eagle.  I understand that many are happy with the changes but I feel the direction is more for "show" and fancy features that only work in "perfect" scenarios.  Some of them are handy, but I really haven't found any of them useful in daily work.  That being said I use a lot of scripts I have written to perform things like job outputs, custom menus, etc.  So I have a lot of built-in automation for routine tasks.
I'm also not a fan of how Autodesk does constant releases with bugs.  I'd much rather use something where I know the bugs than continually running into new ones.
I also use Fusion 360 for mechanical CAD and I hate the constant updates opposed to one big release and then a bug fix release.

I would follow Chris Gammels newest videos on the Kicad 5 to get started.  Diptrace is great but there is much less info out there if you run into issues.

Just my 2 cents...
Josh

[MJ_Sound_Cubed]

I found myself choosing kicad. first and foremost it is free. It does have more features like keyboard shortcuts and 3-d view. I get that eagle is more popular and I'm not here to say it is better than eagle because if I were already using eagle or another piece of software I'd be inclined to continue to use that rather than learn another program.

Yeah I totally agree for free is a massive plus. I was using Eagle and swapped over to KiCAD, after the learning curve I quite enjoy it.

If you are going to start on a CAD package start with Kicad or Diptrace (in my opinion).
As an Eagle CAD user, I'm actually working on learning other packages now, Altium (for high speed design work) and Kicad.
I have the legacy V7.7 Eagle CAD ultimate and actually unsubscribed to the newest versions of Eagle.  I understand that many are happy with the changes but I feel the direction is more for "show" and fancy features that only work in "perfect" scenarios.  Some of them are handy, but I really haven't found any of them useful in daily work.  That being said I use a lot of scripts I have written to perform things like job outputs, custom menus, etc.  So I have a lot of built-in automation for routine tasks.
I'm also not a fan of how Autodesk does constant releases with bugs.  I'd much rather use something where I know the bugs than continually running into new ones.
I also use Fusion 360 for mechanical CAD and I hate the constant updates opposed to one big release and then a bug fix release.

I would follow Chris Gammels newest videos on the Kicad 5 to get started.  Diptrace is great but there is much less info out there if you run into issues.

Just my 2 cents...
Josh

Like your 2 cents, they are more like 2 good dolars I have the feeling you use it professionally on a daily basis, am I right?

[gtr2]

Yeah, I'm using a CAD package daily.  When I started into PCB design, KiCad wasn't at the same level it is today.  It's really turning into a nice package.
It will also be interesting to see where Autodesk goes, they have been making subscription changes on Fusion360 recently and I wouldn't be surprised if Eagle is next.

[imjonwain]

Funny this came up.  I am actually working from home today learning KiCad for a possible switch over at my work.  We/I currently use Eagle 7.7 daily and it works great but it's definitely quirky software and without future updates KiCad or Diptrace seem to make sense to us now. 

So far there's a few annoyances to it that I think aren't terribly well thought out ( you can rotate a component in the schematic and your wires don't move with the rotation) but once you know them it doesn't seem any worse then Eagles issues.  You can convert Eagle projects into KiCad now and I think libraries too actually but I haven't tried that yet as I'm still just getting comfortable and learning hot keys.  I'll try that out later today.  I say go for KiCad, learn it now and you'll more or less know how most ecad programs work.

[gtr2]

I don't have Kicad V5 installed yet, did they add net highlighting for the schematic?
It's something I constantly use.

[imjonwain]

sorry I just saw your post!  Yeah there is a "net highlight" button on the right hand side of the screen now.  I don't find it as fast as eagles typing but it works the same mostly.