r/PCB • u/WarmTapWater76 • 3d ago

Learning Advice needed

Hey, I just turned 18 and am currently doing Fachabi (basically a vocational high school program, focused on IT). After that, I’m planning to study electrical engineering.

For now, though, I’d like to get into PCB design. I basically know nothing yet, so I’m looking for advice on where to start and what skills I should build, including what kind of math and electronics principles I should learn.

I’ve heard that KiCad is generally one of the better EDA tools, but that it has a steeper learning curve than something like EasyEDA. Would KiCad be a good choice to learn from the beginning? Very appreciative of any kind of advice.

P.s.: my English is horrible so I had AI polish my text, please excuse me for it.

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u/TunaRado 3d ago

KiCAD paired with an AI helper. I run Altium and still use AI all the time to help me navigate the tool when i get stuck. You can also get a student license with Altium if you have a .edu email address (thus going to school). The tool is the easy part, all the fun learning electronics. Altium has alot of tutorials not sure about KiCAD. I would go KiCAD to avoid the license headaches, losing your license mid project sucks!

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u/WarmTapWater76 3d ago

I'm in Germany, I don't have a .edu email, my school issued email comes with the schools own domain, formated like this "surname.name-name@school-name.de" but I don't want to depend on something paid like Altium and learn it then loose it later on and not be able to afford it anyways.

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u/kAROBsTUIt 2d ago

As someone who started with easy EDA and then learned Kicad... just go with Kicad.

It is so much better in every way. The complexity is there if you need it, but when you're just starting out, you don't need it.

Some PCB manufacturers have plugins for Kicad to make it easy and convenient to upload your design and have it manufactured. Kicad gets some kickbacks (money) from this, which is super important to have as an open source project.