You have a schema capture tool (eeschema) and a board design (pcbnew). Start a new project, then start doing your circuit design in eeschema. I personally always disable move on zoom and install the solarized dark plugin, since it looks quite nice.
- Click and hold Middle mouse to move around the schematic / board view.
- P - places a power symbol (gnd / v+)
- A - add component
- E - edits parameters
- X - rotates on x axis
- Y - rotates on y axis
- M - move stuff
There are a ton of symbols installed by default, I recommend just browsing to see what kind of organization there is.
The "contextual electronics" tutorials on youtube are good to begin with. They are with older versions but most of the technique is unchanged for the most part.
Basics are still there.
There are some good books out there too such as "Kicad like a pro" which come recommended by people I trust.
#kicad @liberachat IRC is still active too as well as other channels.
The official guide [0] is good, but a bit too detailed.
I started out with ruiqimao's mechanical keyboard PCB guide [1], which I think is good enough to get my feet wet. From then on it's just messing around and checking the doc along the way.
Find some existing project similar to yours that has a PCB and a circuit diagram. I tend to recommend that synth DIY folks look at something like yusynth.net, and Yves Usson's designs. It doesn't have to be done in Kicad and indeed it might be better if it's not.
Redraw the circuit in Kicad, then redraw the PCB. See how close you can get to the original.
That way you're climbing the "learn how to use Kicad" learning curve, without having to climb the "learn how to lay out a PCB and circuit diagram" learning curve :-)
My workflow (I'm a hobbyist, take what I say with a grain of salt):
- Installed "library loader" which Supports kicad
- Sign up for componentsearchengine.com
- Find parts I need on mouser.com/mouser.de (I'm in Germany) and look them up on component search engine, download the cad files; library loader picks them up automatically
- Use them in the schematic view, get your schematic finished FIRST
- Then "Update PCB from schematic". This imports all of the individual footprints and stuff you need to wire together.
- From here, should be like most other CADs; wire up your rats nest, do your ground fills ("Fill area" tool on the right), etc.
- Export Gerbers and drills after googling "jlcpcb export kicad 6" (they don't have a 7 guide yet but doesn't matter) just to double check the settings, then upload to jlc and they arrive about a week and a half later.
- In the schematic view, go to tools and then Generate BOM. It takes some finagling but you can usually massage the CSV it generates to upload to Mouser's shopping cart page to get an exact amount of parts you need, including the ability to specify multiples. Note that usually upping the amount of small components results in more for less overall cost (yes, really) so play with the quantities. Resistors can be purchased for a few bucks at the 500 to 1000 quantity, and are usually cheaper to do that than to order 5 or 10. Anyway, then you order your parts.
The "use footprints from other people" thing is contentious, I know. Most serious engineers make their own footprints. I don't have the time, personally, since unless I'm missing something it requires freecad for me to get the measurements right, and kicad doesn't have the required constraint solving tools to allow me to make sure I've got all of it right, so the workflow is CRAZY inefficient (lots of importing drawings from freecad, manually creating pads, then using multi-select and align tools to get them where they need to be...).
Kicad with a constraint solver like freecad's would be a ridiculously huge improvement IMO, but hopefully this is enough to get someone tinkering. Kicad devs if you're reading... pleeeeease. I know it's a lot of work.
Many of the ones you can find took no effort and are untested. A shitty script tried extracting information from a PDF datasheet or converting file formats for the purpose of driving internet traffic to an ad-riddled website.
Many are low-effort and untested. They were manually created by people who don't give a shit because they're not the ones using them.
Some are wrong. It's easy to get mixed up and number them wrong, usually upside down. Even when the issues are known, they rarely get fixed in published models and libraries.
Sometimes you need an engineered design. Pads can be designed for manufacturing, thermal, electrical, and mechanical considerations. Hardly any published pads were made by people who know how to do those things in the first place. Either way, they're not designing for your specific board.
In summary, it would be insane to spend money manufacturing random garbage from the internet, and a "good" pad may not be the right good pad for that board.
If you never made a PCB you probably want a tutorial just to get the basics right and not learn them once you already made mistakes and send it to manufacturing.
Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want. Expect to make mistakes on your first custom boards, even if you watch every tutorial. Be forgiving of yourself; it’s a learning process.
You have a schema capture tool (eeschema) and a board design (pcbnew). Start a new project, then start doing your circuit design in eeschema. I personally always disable move on zoom and install the solarized dark plugin, since it looks quite nice.
There are a ton of symbols installed by default, I recommend just browsing to see what kind of organization there is.