On 6/16/2014 9:01 AM, Rich Webb wrote:
On Sat, 14 Jun 2014 22:03:11 -0400, rickman wrote:

I am starting a design with Kicad in order to learn it. The Kicad web
site has a list of Tutorials, but the first one, "Official KiCad
tutorial" doesn't load. Anyone know what is wrong with it?

There are a few that could claim to be the official site. The tutorial
links from
http://www.kicad-pcb.org/display/KICAD/KiCad+EDA+Software+Suite seem
to work okay.

Not working for me. I get 502 bad gateway error. Every page at that
site I try. I was able view pages there a few days ago.


bazaar.launchpad.net/~kicad-developers/kicad/doc/view/head:/doc/help/en/Getting_Started_in_KiCad.pdf

I am reading a tutorial from Teho Labs. So far, so good. Does anyone
have any suggestions on what is harder or what might be stumbling blocks?

The original libraries more or less grew from Jean-Pierre's personal
components and so can be a little quirky. When you add new parts to
the schematic or PCB libraries, recommend putting them in personal
libraries.

Some folks dislike the CVPCB step that marries schematic items to
footprints for use by the layout editor. I'm fine with it and
footprints can be assigned directly from the schematic if that suits.

I noticed that when I tried the menu item "New from Template" it points
by default to a location in the install directory under "Program
Files...". That is a no-no under Windows. Will this be an issue or
will no data be put there unless I do it? I will be writing to a
separate directory in my user space I expect.

I've never bothered with templates. I just start a default new project
and then use the "page settings" to define the paper size and text for
the title blocks.

I often use a tool and then don't use it again for months. So I need as
much handled for me without requiring memorization of steps as possible.
I'm used to using FreePCB and Orcad, but Orcad is commercial and
FreePCB seems rather stagnant at this point. I saw a video showing
trace pushing in KiCad which would be nice to use on tight boards.

--

Rick