PCBs Making: Design And Order Your First PCB With KiCAD!

If you've ever made something cool on a breadboard (or even a perfboard), you've probably wished you could have a PCB (Printed Circuit Board) version of it. Well, now you can! We'll go through the PCB design process from nothing to ordering it from a factory. It's very cheap (even with tariffs, ~$20), especially if we pool orders to share shipping, and only took 6 days from ordering to arrival last time I ordered.

Please install KiCAD first. It's free! https://www.kicad.org

The project is a single board design, which can be assembled in several ways to be a simple Tic-Tac-Toe game, with LEDs that light up when they're on the board.

I'll go through the process of designing the board live (from schematic, to physical layout, to exporting and ordering) for everyone to follow along, and there will be a slide deck with screenshots of key parts for reference, as well as a list of commands and shortcuts.

The slide deck includes reference images, and lists of key commands: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1yQPj5Z4sloXLWTnjNYYcgVzHd5BegMvzJ8xlgtuFs88/edit?slide=id.p#slide=id.p

When the boards arrive, all the components used should be readily available in the space already (and I have some to supplement). It only uses headers, LEDs, and resistors.