Ok, the schematic is done. Well, I actually made some tweaks to it, so it now looks like this:

The changes focus primarily around the addition of the switch (SW1). The PWR_FLAG items are simply for KiCad to understand where the power lines are coming from.

Drawing the schematic is the “easy” part, now it’s time to actually assign each of those generic parts a very specific part so I can actually order them to start testing things out!

So, head on over to digikey.com and start searching! Remember to reference your datasheets for your components. For example, in the MCP1642 datasheet, it tells you exactly what type of input and output capacitors you should be looking for. When you find the part you want, you can add these details to your components:

So, as you can see, I’m using a 10μF ceramic X5R in a 0603 package. Perfect! This will do two things for me:

1. Defines the footprint for the pads (the exposed copper) where the component will sit.
2. Provides the details I need to generate a bill of material (BOM) to actually place an order for everything.

Time to go through the rest of the schematic and getting things figured out.