Just testing the KiCad waters

[rrinker]

 My only real experience with any sort of EE CAD is with an ancient verion of OrCAD back when I first graduated college in 1988. I used it for a few years to design a couple of project ideas, but never went very far with any of it as I quickly went from any EE ralted work to purely computers, the EE stuff taking a hobby role, and a rathe rlimited one at that for all the intervening years. I've recently gotten back into electronics in a fairly big way (for a hobbyist, not anything like a professional) and sketching things by hand the DaveCAD way on any spare piece of paper won't cut it for some of the things I have planned to complement my model railroad - there will be enough of some boards to merit having PC boards made, for one. I previously tried messing around a bit with Eagle but never put the time in to learn it. After finding the forums here, I discovered KiCad, so about 9 months ago or so I gave it a shot and wasn't terribly impressed. However, with the latest version I decided to give it another go, and I'm kind of liking it. I am a rank beginner here, barely drawing a schematic let alone attempting board layouts.
 My 'other' CAD experience is all mechanical drawing stuff - another oldie I had formal trainign on was CadKey, and I've picked up a little AutoCAD along the way, and I used PC DraftCAD back in the day, and all along I have been using a specialized model railroad CAD package called 3rd PlanIt. So general CAD concepts, I get. This EE stuff is much more specialized though.
 So, any good tips for a rank beginner at KiCad, other than to just keep using it?  I'd like to pick one program and stick with it so long as it can meet my needs, and it appears KiCad can do anything I'd ever want to and then some. I do occasionally have a Linux machine in my mix, so the cross platform capability is nice, though at the moment both my general PC and my lab PC are Windows based.
 I know we have all levels of users here, from hobbyists like myself to career professionals. I have a close friend I can call upon for advice on thing I've learned but forgotten over the years, although his expertise is in high frequency RF and microwave design and the design packages he uses make the mainstream paid for EDA packages look cheap.


 

[hasithvm]

Not directly KiCAD related, but I found this companion tool very handy http://madparts.org/ for generating footprints. Gets a little getting used to scripting parts in CoffeeScript, but it's incredibly convenient to tweak a couple parameters and fix a footprint instead of tediously moving things around through the KiCAD editor.

[PCB.Wiz]

.. However, with the latest version I decided to give it another go, and I'm kind of liking it. I am a rank beginner here, barely drawing a schematic let alone attempting board layouts.
..
 So, any good tips for a rank beginner at KiCad, other than to just keep using it?

It can be useful learning to load other's designs to see what can be done.
eg Here is a good 4 layer FPGA example, ported from Altium & routed in KiCad using the Shove Router.

https://github.com/FPGAwars/icezum