How to install & use KiCad FreeRouting/FreeRoute auto-router (incl. manual cleanup & DRC) in KiCad 5
Channel: eRCaGuy
Date: 2018-07-03

Note: the crux of this demo is done by 6:00! By the end of step 2 I have shown how to install the freeroute.jar executable file and use the auto-router to route a board! Feel free to stop at that point. 
UPDATE 27 Nov 2018: SEE SOME OF THE COMMENTS BELOW THIS VIDEO. Essentially, you can now use either the nightly OR stable version 5 release. About a week after I made this video the developers, to my astonishment and dismay, removed the freerouting button.  Here's my bug report where I complained about them removing the freerouting button for their official 5.0 release: https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1779951. The freerouting functionality is still there though: File -- Export -- Specctra DSN, and File -- Import -- Specctra Session. You have to manually run Freerouting via the executable I have you download too, then open up the Specctra DSN files into freerouting that you export from the menu in KiCad. Otherwise, my video still applies.

OBSOLETE NOTE START:
NOTE: YOU MUST USE version 5.0.0-rc2. The developers have decided to remove the nice little button in Pcbnew as of Version 5.0.0-rc3 or later (ex: 5.0.0). See here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1779951. Note that "rc" stands for "release candidate", and versions with "-rc" precede versions without it, so in order, the versions are: 5.0.0-rc1, 5.0.0-rc2, 5.0.0-rc3, 5.0.0, with 5.0.0 being the latest version in this case.
OBSOLETE NOTE END.

Video Summary:
I go through: 
1) How to download and "install" (copy over) the necessary (and pre-compiled) freeroute.jar ("freeRouting.jar") binary.
2) (Briefly): how to use the auto-router to route a couple boards (1 trivial, 1 less trivial), including back-importing the routed boards back into KiCad.
3) How to download the KiCad source code and demo project files (ex: to use as demo tools to test the autorouter).
4) How to work around a minor bug in the autorouter that sometimes makes it not allow you to output the routed board .ses file.
5) How to rename board layers.
6) How to do manual board cleanup, including DRC (Design Rules Check), manual trace modifications and dragging, Interactive Router Settings (very brief mention), board ground fill (brief), and how to fix ground fill problems such as floating fill islands which need to be connected via a few vias and traces. 
7) The end-result is a nice, auto-routed board (auto-routing is so convenient!) with minimal hand-cleanup ready to be sent off to the manufacturer. 

I'm super happy to have the auto-router working so that I can use it for quick-and-dirty jobs that require a faster design speed and less manual work at the sacrifice of a bit of perfection.

Thanks for watching! Come visit me at www.ElectricRCAircraftGuy.com.

Links you will need from the video:
1) https://freerouting.org/freerouting/using-with-kicad
2) https://github.com/KiCad/kicad-source-mirror