Wampler KiCad course

[Audandash]

So I wanted to share my thoughts on the Wampler KiCad course. It is awful!! It is such a hot mess I stopped halfway through and requested a refund. That is not something I have ever done. I know how to use KiCad pretty well but like most if not all of us I am self taught. I was hoping to find some pointers and things I might have overlooked. Things that may help me with layouts etc.. This is not it. Let me say if I I didn’t know how to use it already this not only would have confused me more but probably turned me off on it all together. It’s not Wampler doing it like his other building course (great by the way). It seems like it was done all in one shot with no editing. It assumes a lot from the get go. Things like you know how to install libraries etc…. He goes through stuff really fast and offers little to no explanation on anything. His placement walk through was literally just place stuff close together. I wanted to like it but maybe I just built it up because of the other course. Your money and time are certainly better spent elsewhere. Maybe with a lot of updates in the future it will be ready for release but this just feels like a money grab.

 

[rwl]

Thanks for letting me know. I'm a moderately heavy KiCAD user but had some FOMO that I was missing good tips on layout's impact on noise, preferred settings, useful hotkeys or plugins, etc. Glad to know I'm not missing anything.

 

[Audandash]

So I will say I requested a refund on Saturday. I got an email from Brian this morning and it’s already refunded with no issues. He appreciated the feedback I gave. I gave lots of details and where I thought it could use improvement. I will try other courses simply because of this. As I have stated before the pedal building course is great. I will get the intermediate building course at some point. I am hopeful the KiCad course will evolve with feedback to the same quality as the others.

 

[Locrian99]

I purchased the course awhile back and went througj it all. Never used kicad, can use diptrace sufficiently enough to make boards etc but far from an expert, or even experienced user.

I was not impressed also felt like i wasted my money to an extent. Things i was hoping he’d spend a bit more time on he didn’t, was really hoping they’d cover editing components/patterns but knew going in it didn’t. Just overall didn’t seem worth it. Not sure if it would’ve been if i had 0 diptrace experience. I will disagree there is directions on installing the libraries but its at the very end. (You didn’t get that far it sounds like).

I did hop on the forums and asked a few design questions and the guy who did the videos did promptly answer.

I’m still using diptrace.

 

[Audandash]

I purchased the course awhile back and went througj it all. Never used kicad, can use diptrace sufficiently enough to make boards etc but far from an expert, or even experienced user.

I was not impressed also felt like i wasted my money to an extent. Things i was hoping he’d spend a bit more time on he didn’t, was really hoping they’d cover editing components/patterns but knew going in it didn’t. Just overall didn’t seem worth it. Not sure if it would’ve been if i had 0 diptrace experience. I will disagree there is directions on installing the libraries but its at the very end. (You didn’t get that far it sounds like).

I did hop on the forums and asked a few design questions and the guy who did the videos did promptly answer.

I’m still using diptrace.

Good to know on the libraries. I made it 54% through the course so I never made it there. It seems like they should be towards the beginning since you are using them right away. Once again with some editing and improvements maybe they can move stuff around to improve the overall course. It’s interesting to hear I am not the only one who thought it was less than spectacular. Makes me feel a little less like an ass for saying it’s not good, lol. Courses should be like books. They should grab you in the first chapter to make you want to keep going.

 

[Locrian99]

Good to know on the libraries. I made it 54% through the course so I never made it there. It seems like they should be towards the beginning since you are using them right away. Once again with some editing and improvements maybe they can move stuff around to improve the overall course. It’s interesting to hear I am not the only one who thought it was less than spectacular. Makes me feel a little less like an ass for saying it’s not good, lol. Courses should be like books. They should grab you in the first chapter to make you want to keep going.

Even if the included libraries were better I wouldve seen more value in it. I’m paying for something is like it to be better than what i can find for free.