After opening your Kicad project.pro file, you can double click the.kicadpcb file or click the “ PCBNew ” button to open your PCB editor. Plot your Kicad PCB as Gerber files. Create a new project. If the default template file (kicad.kicadpro) is found in kicad/template, it is copied into the working directory. Create a new project from an existing template. Open an existing project. Create a zip archive of the whole project. This includes schematic files, libraries, PCB, etc. Extract a project zip archive into a.
Follow these steps to import footprints into KiCad using the.lib file. In KiCad, go to Tools Edit Schematic Symbols. Click on Preferences Manage Symbol Libraries. On the Global Libraries tab, click on Browse Libraries (the small folder icon below) and select the.lib file. Then click Open. If you have been using a development build of KiCad, copy the full default global symbol library table file (sym-lib-table) from the template folder installed with the KiCad libraries or from the KiCad library repo to your KiCad user configuration folder. This will replace the empty one (most likely) created by Eeschema. The Eagle 6.xx PCB files can be directly imported to KiCad. The scripts also convert Via’s to Pads, which helps with KiCad’s flood fill, when Via’s have no connections – this part requires.
Select File -> Plot from the menu to open the gerber generation tool.
In general, there are 8x layers you need to have a PCB fabricated:
Top Copper (F.Cu)+ Soldermask (F.Mask) + Silkscreen (F.SilkS)
In the Plot window with the Plot format set for Gerber, be sure these Layers are checked:
If you don't know which layers, please check all layers, JLCPCB will help you to use the right layers. Click ‘Plot’ to generate the gerber files for the layers.
Kicad Flex Pcb
Don't forget to Generate the Drill Files. Click on ‘Generate Drill File’ button. You can use the defaults here as well. Check the 'Merge PTH and NPTH holes into one file' box. For now just click ‘Drill File’ or press ‘enter’ to generate the drill file. Use the same output folder as for the gerbers, which should be the default.
Check the Gerber files in GerbView
Next, click ‘Close’to exit the Drill and Plot windows. All of the files should have appeared in your gerbers folder. KiCAD comes with a gerber viewer called GerbView, you can open the “GerbView” and check what your board looks like before sending it to manufacturer.
Open .pcb File Kicad
For more details, please see this video tutorial of generating Gerber files for manufacturing in KiCad. For Kicad 5.1.5, please check this tutorial. If everything looks OK, select all of the files, zip them up, and upload the zip file to JLCPCB order page.