Again, I reiterate, because this is important!
Want to make your own printed circuit boards? Or, to put it rather more bluntly… commercial printed circuit board ordering as-a-service typically has a minimum order quantity greater than one. If you only need to manufacture exactly one printed circuit board of a design, commercial services will leave you with 2-10 extra circuit boards. So, to get that manufacturing in quantity of one, you have to do-it-yourself. How?
There are three main methods at your disposal as a DIYer.
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Chemical etching: use a laser printer to create a photoresist mask, iron it onto copper-plated bare board, then chemically etch away the non-conductive parts. The disadvantage is that you have to buy extra metal that gets dissolved into your chemical etching solution that thebn gets disposed. Also, the fact that you have to work with wet chemicals.
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Chemical deposition: use an inkjet printer or similar to deposit conductive ink onto an unplated circuit board substrate, then use a copper ion bath to electroform the metal traces. The disadvantage is that you’ll typically be left with unused metal ions in your ion bath, which will need to be either saved for future use or disposed of. Also, the fact that you have to work with wet chemicals.
- Mechanical etching: use a CNC milling/drilling machine to etch away the metal from a copper-plated bare board. The disadvantage is that you have to use a noisy milling/drilling machine and deal with the etched off metal dust, but the advantage is that the etched off metal dust is potentially easier to recycle and reuse than the chemical baths. Also, if you are working with through-hole components, you might have to drill holes anyways, so this solution also gives you ready access to the necessary drilling tools to do so.
So, there is no clear “easy” way to make your own printed circuit boards, but it is definitely doable if you’re willing to make some personal sacrifices.
Also, once your done with the circuit board, if you are doing reflow soldering, I’ve mentioned there are easy and cheap ways to do that with a conventional oven that give you reasonably good results. I’ll briefly summarize the important tips I’ve mentioned previously. Use an approximate temperature ramp-up curve to bake out any moisture that may have been absorbed into moisture-sensitive components before reaching the reflow temperature. Also, I recommend not to use the same oven you use for your kitchen food, and especially not an oven built into the wall, a toaster oven is the best. Why? Even if you are working with lead-free solder so as to avoid food poisoning risk, the secondary problem is that the flux itself is chemically similar to paint remover. It has to be, if the goal is, you know, to clean metals for optimal joining. Especially for lead-free solder, the flux is much more profuse, so the problem is potentially magnified… that doing so may ruin your oven’s internal paint or coatings. Hence, the recommendation to use an expendable toaster oven, not to mention that the smaller volume means less energy to heat it up to the required temperature.
Finally, this applies with both hand soldering and reflow soldering. Keep in mind where your flux fumes are being vented, you don’t want it touching random indoor surfaces as it can cause damage due to its paint remover style chemistry. Ideally, use an air filtering system to suck in and catch the solder flux fumes before they can touch any vulnerable surfaces, walls and ceilings being a first obvious target. A simple fan with an activated carbon filter is the cheapest, but certainly not of ideal effectiveness, actually considered totally ineffective by some if the purpose is to protect human operators. But, something is better than nothing. Also, another cheap solution you can use. If your indoor environment is controlled with minimal random wind and clearly directional air flow, then you can set up your own “catchment” or “mini-ceiling” where the solder fumes will be known to strike first. This will at least immobilize most of them before the remainder touches the walls or ceiling of your room.
UPDATE 2020-07-12: Digi-Key now offers a really nice “PCB Builder” service where you can upload a design and compare prices from multiple different board houses. Many of these are based in California, USA. And, the best part about it, you can order in quantity of one! However… although ordering in quantity of one is available, it does come at a considerable expense, more expensive than the total price of ordering in quantity of 3. But, if you really only need a single circuit board, you better order in quantity of one, recycling the other two unused boards later will cost more.
UPDATE 2020-07-20: Here is a nice sped-up video illustrating CNC milling to make your own printed circuit boards. Beware, this method is really slow, and it requires a bit of periodic manual intervention, mainly to vacuum the dust off the board generated during the process. So, CNC milling is not all magic.
20200720/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yho0H7x6BEQ