Larger PCBs without paying for CAD software?

[rob77]

once you have all the tools and materials in place and you got some experience making PCBs - then it's upto 1 hour regardless of the board's size.

I'm not inexperienced at making PCBs, I've made a good number of them.  Simple ones I can do pretty quick, but when boards are double sided with hundreds of vias there's just no way to do that quickly by hand.  There's enough time involved there to make sending out for fabrication preferable.  Then there are boards with more than two layers which can be a necessity when footprint has to be absolutely minimal.

obviously hundreds of vias on a board is a complexity not suitable for riveted vias. i'm using rivets made by Bungard and the smallest ones are 0,4mm inner and 0,6mm outer diameter - so it's not even possible to make extra high density boards this way. multi-layer board is out of question. 4 layers is technically possible but it's too much work and it has severe limitations - the only stacking possible is ((1*2)+(3*4)) - basically two 0,6mm thick double sided boards glued together with high temp epoxy - i did it and it works, but it's way too limiting in terms of routing (you can't have vias going through all 4 layers - just 1&2 or 3&4 or 1&4) and it's simply too much work and takes ages to make it (epoxy cure time is 24hours).

so in short yes, it has it's limitations to make the boards in your home/lab... but the limits are not that bad.. 2 sided board with soldermask , smallest via drill size is 0.6mm , and 0,5mm pitch packages - pretty usable for many many projects.  and it also has it's advantages... don't have to wait days for my board(s) and if i make a stupid mistake i can do a re-spin in 1 hour and it costs me the raw materials only.

and in situations like the OP - low budget and giant PCB footprint - it's probably the best option

[sci4me]

once you have all the tools and materials in place and you got some experience making PCBs - then it's upto 1 hour regardless of the board's size.

I'm not inexperienced at making PCBs, I've made a good number of them.  Simple ones I can do pretty quick, but when boards are double sided with hundreds of vias there's just no way to do that quickly by hand.  There's enough time involved there to make sending out for fabrication preferable.  Then there are boards with more than two layers which can be a necessity when footprint has to be absolutely minimal.

obviously hundreds of vias on a board is a complexity not suitable for riveted vias. i'm using rivets made by Bungard and the smallest ones are 0,4mm inner and 0,6mm outer diameter - so it's not even possible to make extra high density boards this way. multi-layer board is out of question. 4 layers is technically possible but it's too much work and it has severe limitations - the only stacking possible is ((1*2)+(3*4)) - basically two 0,6mm thick double sided boards glued together with high temp epoxy - i did it and it works, but it's way too limiting in terms of routing (you can't have vias going through all 4 layers - just 1&2 or 3&4 or 1&4) and it's simply too much work and takes ages to make it (epoxy cure time is 24hours).

so in short yes, it has it's limitations to make the boards in your home/lab... but the limits are not that bad.. 2 sided board with soldermask , smallest via drill size is 0.6mm , and 0,5mm pitch packages - pretty usable for many many projects.  and it also has it's advantages... don't have to wait days for my board(s) and if i make a stupid mistake i can do a re-spin in 1 hour and it costs me the raw materials only.

and in situations like the OP - low budget and giant PCB footprint - it's probably the best option

Honestly, I think I may as well TRY it myself. Does anyone have a dummies guide for this? I have NO idea where to start with making my own PCBs.

[CraigHB]

There's some good how-to docs you can find on the web.  It's something people write about a lot.  When I first started using the toner transfer method that's how I got some good ideas on the best way to do it.  Going to a laminator was a big help for me, though they sometimes need a little modification to get the temperature up high enough.  I don't have any links for you, but should not be hard to find.  Otherwise maybe someone else can provide a link to a good how-to.