So I am designing this little Arduino based sensor kit and wondering about getting it made as a single board with everything built in.<p>Any suggestions where to start?
The solutions run the gamut from laser printing (or handcarving) your own traces and using copper etchant to getting complete boards made.<p>The happy medium I found was using ExpressPCB's cheapest service which included high-quality (if only small and 2 layer) boards, then buying from Mouser, DigiKey, or similar the components and soldering 'em on personally. Can probably make three identical small boards for <$100 (and 2-3 hours each soldering) as long as you don't have any exotic chips on your device.<p>As soon as you start drilling more than 3-4 holes (almost impossible _not_ to do) making the stuff at home just isn't fun unless you have high-end production equipment. Doing it the way listed above was actually pretty fun.