Week 06 – Electronic Design

Weekly Assignments:

Check Out Our Group Assignment

Group assignment:

• Use the test equipment in your lab to observe the operation of a microcontroller circuit board (as a minimum, you should demonstrate the use of a logic analyzer)

• Document your work on the group work page and reflect what you learned on your individual page

Individual assignment:

• Use an EDA tool to design a development board that uses parts from the inventory to interact and communicate with an embedded microcontroller

Getting Started with KiCad

Importing The Fab Library

Before we get started to designing our PCB, let’s first download the Fab Library, which will asist us while building our PCB.

In order to import the library into our project. Lets first create a new project.

Before looking over the left bar of the app. First, create a new folder specifically for KiCad, that you will use to locate the new project that you will build. Later, click on the element that says “New Project”, or either use “Control + N”.

After that, it opens a new folder creation page. There, name your project (I named Week 6 PCB) into your liking and save it inside the folder that you have created beforehand, which was specifically for KiCad.

After that you need to download the Fab Academy KiCad Library file. You can reach to that file through the link below:

Fab Academy KiCad Library

After you downloaded that file, you need to extract that file with including everything in that file.

When you finish that, there are two options for you to left in order to import the library. You either need to find and copy the pathway of the file named “fab.kicad_sym”.

Once that’s done. You need to open up the “Preferences” from the horizontal bar at the top at KiCad, and you need to choose “Manage Symbol Libraries…”.

When you chose that, it takes you into a new window. Here, you need to go down to the bottom, and there you need to click on the “+” sign to add a new file inside the project. That creates a new tab inside those file. Right now is the the other option. You can also click to the “folder icon”, and find your file throughout your computer rather than copying the file path that we copied before. This is shown in the photo below.

But, if you still insist on using the pathway, you can directly paste it to the text box on the left of the folder icon, which is named “Library Path”

After concluding either options, make sure that the check boxes on the left are checked. Also, name the file on its “Nickname” text box, which I named it as “fab”.

Now, click “Okay”, and our process for this library is done.

Here is also a YouTube video, which you can utilize during the process:

KiCAD Fab Academy Library Install Clip

Again, you also need to add a Footprint Library. So, with applying the same steps provided above. You need to open up the “Preferences” from the horizontal bar at the top at KiCad, and you need to choose “Manage Footprint Libraries…”.

Here you need add “fab.pretty” as footprint library. And, once you add it, this library will also be imported. Again, make sure that the check box on the left is checked. Also, name the file on its “Nickname” text box. Here, I again named it “fab”

Finally, You need to go to the “Preferences” from the horizontal bar at the top at KiCad, and you need to choose “Configure Paths…”. In order for 3D models to load correctly, we need to add our Fab Library path to KiCad. So, here, you need to add new environment variable called “FAB” that points to location of the fab library on your drive. You can see an example of mine in the image below:

Click “Okay”, and we are set.