KiCad 6 Like A Pro – Projects, Tips and Recipes

Design the PCBs for an Arduino-powered datalogger and a custom ESP32 board. Understand the finer details of the interactive router and how to manage KiCad project teams with Git, and much more.

KiCad 6 is a modern, cross-platform application suite built around schematic and design editors. This stable and mature PCB tool is a perfect fit for electronic engineers and hobbyists. With KiCad 6, you can create PCBs of any complexity and size without the constraints associated with the commercial packages.

Here are the most significant improvements and features in KiCad 6, both over and under the hood:

• Modern user interface, completely redesigned from earlier versions
• Improved and customizable electrical and design rule checkers
• Theme editor allowing you to fully customize the look of KiCad on your screen
• Ability to import projects from Eagle, CADSTART, and more
• Enhanced bus handling
• Full control over the presentation of information by the layout editor: set the visibility, color, and attribute of any board element, and create presets
• Filters define which elements of a layout are selectable
• Enhanced interactive router helps you draw single tracks and differential pairs with precision
• New or enhanced tools to draw tracks, measure distances, tune track lengths, etc.
• Enhanced tool for creating filled zones
• A customizable coordinate system facilitates data exchange with other CAD applications
• Realistic ray-tracing capable 3D viewer
• Huge community of contributors that make KiCad better every day
• Rich repositories of symbol, footprint, and 3D shape libraries