Learn KiCad with Peter Dalmaris
The Academy Pro Box "Design PCBs like a Pro" offers a complete, structured training programme in PCB design, combining online learning with practical application. Based on Peter Dalmaris’ KiCad course, the 15-week programme integrates video lessons, printed materials (2 books), and hands-on projects to ensure participants not only understand the theory but also develop the skills to apply it in practice.
Unlike standard courses, the Academy Pro Box provides a guided learning path with weekly milestones and physical components to design, test, and produce working PCBs. This approach supports a deeper learning experience and better knowledge retention.
The box is ideal for engineers, students, and professionals who want to develop practical PCB design expertise using open-source tools. With the added option to have their final project manufactured, participants complete the programme with real results – ready for use, testing, or further development.
Learn by doing
Build skills. Design real boards. Generate Gerbers. Place your first order. This isn’t just a course – it’s a complete project journey from idea to product.
You’ll walk away with:
Working knowledge of KiCad’s tools
Confidence designing your own PCBs
A fully manufacturable circuit board – made by you
What's inside the Box (Course)?
Both volumes of "KiCad Like a Pro" (valued at €105)
Vol 1: Fundamentals and Projects
Vol 2: Advanced Projects and Recipes
Coupon code to join the bestselling KiCad 9 online course by Peter Dalmaris on Udemy, featuring 20+ hours of video training. You'll complete three full design projects:
Breadboard Power Supply
Tiny Solar Power Supply
Datalogger with EEPROM and Clock
Voucher from Eurocircuits for the production of PCBs (worth €85 excl. VAT)
Learning Material (of this Box/Course)
15-Week Learning Program
▶ Click here to open
Week 1: Setup, Fundamentals, and First Steps in PCB Design
Week 2: Starting Your First PCB Project – Schematic Capture
Week 3: PCB Layout – From Netlist to Board Design
Week 4: Design Principles, Libraries, and Workflow
Week 5: Your First Real-World PCB Project
Week 6: Custom Libraries – Symbols, Footprints, and Workflow
Week 7: Advanced Tools – Net Classes, Rules, Zones, Routing
Week 8: Manufacturing Files, BOMs, and PCB Ordering
Week 9: Advanced Finishing Techniques – Graphics, Refinement, and Production Quality
Week 10: Tiny Solar Power Supply – From Schematic to Layout
Week 11: Tiny Solar Power Supply – PCB Layout and Production Prep
Week 12: ESP32 Clone Project – Schematic Design and Layout Prep
Week 13: ESP32 Clone – PCB Layout and Manufacturing Prep
Week 14: Final Improvements and Advanced Features
Week 15: Productivity Tools, Simulation, and Automation
KiCad Course with 18 Lessons on Udemy (by Peter Dalmaris)
▶ Click here to open
Introduction
Getting started with PCB design
Getting started with KiCad
Project: A hands-on tour of KiCad (Schematic Design)
Project: A hands-on tour of KiCad (Layout)
Design principles and PCB terms
Design workflow and considerations
Fundamental KiCad how-to: Symbols and Eeschema
Fundamental KiCad how-to: Footprints and Pcbnew
Project: Design a simple breadboard power supply PCB
Project: Tiny Solar Power Supply
Project: MCU datalogger with build-in 512K EEPROM and clock
Recipes
KiCad 9 new features and improvements
Legacy (from previous versions of KiCad)
KiCad 7 update (Legacy)
(Legacy) Gettings started with KiCad
Bonus lecture
About the Author
Dr. Peter Dalmaris, PhD is an educator, an electrical engineer and Maker. Creator of online video courses on DIY electronics and author of several technical books. As a Chief Tech Explorer since 2013 at Tech Explorations, the company he founded in Sydney, Australia, Peter's mission is to explore technology and help educate the world.
What is Elektor Academy Pro?
Elektor Academy Pro delivers specialized learning solutions designed for professionals, engineering teams, and technical experts in the electronics and embedded systems industry. It enables individuals and organizations to expand their practical knowledge, enhance their skills, and stay ahead of the curve through high-quality resources and hands-on training tools.
From real-world projects and expert-led courses to in-depth technical insights, Elektor empowers engineers to tackle today’s electronics and embedded systems challenges. Our educational offerings include Academy Books, Pro Boxes, Webinars, Conferences, and industry-focused B2B magazines – all created with professional development in mind.
Whether you're an engineer, R&D specialist, or technical decision-maker, Elektor Academy Pro bridges the gap between theory and practice, helping you master emerging technologies and drive innovation within your organization.
This adjustable circuit board holder is ideal for clamping PCB for soldering, desoldering or rework.
Features
2 adjustable grips on a retractable stand to accommodate various board sizes.
The adjustable clamps allow the PCB to rotate 360 degrees and stay set in any position.
The base of this rigid metal stand features four rubber feet to ensure stability.
Specifications
Product size
30 x 16.5 x 12.5 cm
Max. holding size
20 x 14 cm
Weight
450 g
Affordable solutions with the ESP8266 and 3D printing
If you are looking for a small yet powerful IoT device, you are likely to come across the ESP8266 and compatible products on the market today. One of these, the Wemos/Lolin D1 Mini Pro board strikes a remarkable balance between cost and performance. A small and very affordable prototype board, the D1 Mini Pro stands out with its WiFi functionality and a 16-Mbytes flash memory for easy creation of a flash file system. In addition, there are sufficient input and output pins (only one analog input though) to support PWM, I²C, and One-Wire systems to mention but a few. The book describes the operation, modding, construction, and programming of home appliances including a colorful smart home accessory, a refrigerator/greenhouse controller, an AC powerline monitor, a door lock monitor, and an IKEA Trådfri controller.
As a benefit, all firmware developed for these DIY, "IoT-ized" devices can be updated over-the-air (OTA).
For most of the designs in the book, a small printed circuit board (PCB) and an enclosure are presented so readers can have a finished and attractive-looking product. Readers having – or with access to! – a 3D printer can "print" the suggested enclosures at home or in a shop.
Some of the constructions benefit from a Raspberry Pi configured as a gateway or cms server. This is also described in detail with all the necessary configuring.
You don’t need to be an expert but the prerequisites to successful replication of the projects include basic skills with PC software including the ability to surf the Internet. In terms of hardware, you should be comfortable with soldering and generally assembling the PCBs presented in the book.
All custom software written for the IoT devices, the PCB layouts, and 3D print files described in the book are available for free downloading.
TINA Design Suite is a professional, powerful and affordable circuit simulator. It is a circuit designer and PCB design software package for analysing, designing, and real-time testing of analogue, digital, IBIS, VHDL, Verilog, Verilog AMS, SystemC, MCU, and mixed electronic circuits and their PCB layouts.
In this book, top-selling Elektor author, Prof. Dr. Dogan Ibrahim aims to teach the design and analysis of electrical and electronic circuits and develop PCB boards using both TINA and TINACloud. The book is aimed at electrical/electronic engineers, undergraduate electronic/electrical engineering students at technical colleges and universities, postgraduate and research students, teachers, and hobbyists. Many tested and working simulation examples are provided covering most fields of analogue and digital electrical/electronic engineering. These include AC and DC circuits, diodes, zener diodes, transistor circuits, operational amplifiers, ladder diagrams, 3-phase circuits, mutual inductance, rectifier circuits, oscillators, active and passive filter circuits, digital logic, VHDL, MCUs, switch-mode power supplies, PCB design, Fourier series, and spectrum. Readers do not need to have any programming experience unless they wish to simulate complex MCU circuits.
Mastering PCB design with real-world projects
This book builts on KiCad Like a Pro – Fundamentals and Projects and aims to help you practice your new KiCad skills by challenging you in a series of real-world projects. The projects are supported by a comprehensive set of recipes with detailed instructions on how to achieve a variety of simple and complex tasks. Design the PCBs for a solar power supply, an LED matrix array, an Arduino-powered datalogger, and a custom ESP32 board. Understand the finer details of the interactive router, how to manage KiCad project teams with Git, how to use an autorouter on 2 and 4-layer PCBs, and much more.
KiCad 8 is a modern, cross-platform application suite built around schematic and design editors. This stable and mature PCB tool is a perfect fit for electronic engineers and makers. With KiCad 8, you can create PCBs of any complexity and size without the constraints associated with the commercial packages.
Here are the most significant improvements and features in KiCad 8, both over and under the hood:
Modern user interface, completely redesigned from earlier versions
Improved and customizable electrical and design rule checkers
Theme editor allowing you to fully customize the look of KiCad on your screen
Ability to import projects from Eagle, CADSTART, and more
An improved and tightly integrated SPICE circuit simulator
Autorouting with the Freerouting plugin
Filters define which elements of a layout are selectable
Enhanced interactive router helps you draw single tracks and differential pairs with precision
New or enhanced tools to draw tracks, measure distances, tune track lengths, etc.
Enhanced tool for creating filled zones
A customizable coordinate system facilitates data exchange with other CAD applications
Realistic ray-tracing capable 3D viewer
Differential pair routing
Rich repositories of symbol, footprint, and 3D shape libraries
Python scripting API for programmatic customization and extensions
Improved footprint wizard for fast custom footprints
Components are both shrinking and getting increasingly finer pitch year after year but your PCBs might have grown in size or the number of interconnected PCBs or the number of handsfree PCBite probes needed to test your design may have increased making it crowded on our other smaller base plates.
Features
With a size of 297 x 420 mm (DIN A3) the extra large baseplate has room for most PCBs and many handsfree PCBite probes for those measurements sessions where more channels than available is needed.
So if you are looking for more space, extra protection or just want to clean up your work surface then this accessory is a perfect match.
Designed to be used with Sensepeeks magnetic PCBite line of products including PCB holders, hands free probes and magnifier.
Included
1x XL base plate (DIN A3) with pre-fitted insulation cover
Features
Build in USB to Serial interface
Build-in PCB antenna
Powered by Pineseed BL602 SoC using Pinenut model: 12S stamp
2 MB Flash
USB-C connection
Suitable to breadboard BIY project
On board three color LEDs output
Dimensions: 25.4 x 44.0 mm
Note: USB cable is not included.
Plot, Cut, Drill, Mill and Laser with the Z99
This book covers the construction, hardware, software, and operation of the Z99 – CNC machine. This is a multifunctional 4-axis machine for home construction.
The capabilities of the Z99 machine include:
large-format schematic plotting
PCB plotting with etch-resist pens
schematic plotting with conductive-ink pens
letter cutting out of vinyl
paper cutting
PCB/substrate drilling
PCB/substrate milling
text milling
laser engraving
laser cutting of solder paste masks
By making the support software available as freeware, readers of the book are challenged and encouraged to develop new applications for the Z99.
The machine would not be of much use if the user has no option to create suitable files for the designs in mind. A large part of this book is dedicated to creating source files in a variety of freeware software packages, including Inkscape, DesignSpark PCB, KiCad, and FlatCAM.
The book is also useful for readers keen to comprehend and then master the basic structure of HPGL, Gerber, Drill, and G-code files, as well as to have a go at deciphering them using software.
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