KiCad notes: The one-timer PCB maker’s hints for the next time

Intro These are my notes to self for the next time I’ll have a PCB design to make. This is definitely not my expertise. My original intention was to start this post with some kind of apologize, saying I only needed to make a simple board, so KiCad was good enough for this purpose. However [...]

PCB layout: Selecting the track width and spacing for a differential signal

Introduction Even though this is definitely not my expertise, I made a simple adapter board carrying USB 3.0 signals. The name of the game with such boards is to make a minimal impact on the signals, which means, among others, selecting the attributes of these two pairs of differential lines (SSRX and SSTX) in a [...]

KiCad PCB layout: Adapting the footprint’s pads to match track width

Introduction It just so happened that I went for a pair of 0.8mm thick wires, with 0.2mm between them, in order to achieve 90Ω differential impedance on a 1 mm thick FR4 board. No wonder PCBnew (KiCad’s layout program) refused connecting these wires to a USB SuperSpeed receptacle’s footprint, with its 0.4 mm side pads, [...]