I think he was asking “what do I bring to the table?”. My limits right now are through hole components. I have had my eye on the Arduino as it is more rudimentary vs say an SOC with on die CPU and other systems. You can use C with it. I want to learn something about designing my own embedded systems. Seems like the Arduino is a goal I could realize. Its really not that hard to learn how a system works and change the design and use less integration and discrete components. It’s fun I might add.
If your goal is to learn how to make PCBs yourself, I have nothing against it. But if you want to learn electronics, it’s a waste of time learning how to make PCBs if you can easily and relatively cheaply get them made to a level unattainable in amateur conditions.
Electronic is my hobby since, when I was 10 I have done my first radio receiver. Being a child I spend all my free time on electronic and then went on electronic study.
In 70s I was doing my PCBs myself because I just had no other way to get them. In 80s we (communist country) were so backward that the PCBs I could order still did not have plated holes.
I don’t suggest to order assembled PCBs but only PCBs and then assemble them yourself. I have never ordered PCBs in China and I don’t know real prices and so on. Here (in Poland) I can order single 10x10cm 4 layer PCB for about $25 and the factory typically once per month announce ‘PCB day’ and such PCB ordered that day will cost about $5. Even we are a commercial firm if I need prototype boards I always wait for ‘PCB day’.
I don’t know what SBC is and don’t want to search for it but what you write looks like learning electronic and not PCB manufacturing what is exactly what I suggest you as better choice.
In Poland education (including high level) was for free with the effect that after finishing my electronic study I was working for about 8 years at Technical University teaching students and my month salary was exchangeable for $13. Yes, not the mistake, month and thirteen.
The best, humorous description of the communist economy is the following sentence: “If it were introduced in the Sahara, there would be lack of sand after a week.”
I always asked myself questions like ‘how this circuit works’ and not ‘how to do PCB myself’. Decision how kind of questions you will search answers for is completely yours. Information we write here are only to help you to make an informed decision.
Well thanks for replying to my message. I think you are well aware of of what a Single Board Computer is. Arduino is an SBC and it’s been my dream to build one. I still advise people to make their own printed circuit boards. The quality is actually better than the alternative, hand wired protoboards. That’s what I am talking about. CNC machines are a good intro to automation and later you could retool with better machinery. I believe sending your designs to a shop to have PCBs made is impossible unless you are already a PCB designer.
Usually the SBC name is reserved for the somewhat bigger “pc” like systems such as the raspberry pie, Odroid, or Olinuxino ( shown on https://www.kicad.org/made-with-kicad/ ) PCB’s with a microcontroller are so common that it’s not really worth it to give those a separate name.
No, in these days this is as easy as uploading your KiCad Gerber files to a website, paying a few Euro’s (PCB’s start at about 1 euro a piece) and then waiting till the PCB get delivered. Even the lowest cost fabs deliver double sided PCB’s with metalization and with soldermask and silkscreen on both sides.
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I don’t understand where from such your believe comes. If using KiCad you will design PCB (if you have some doubts you can always ask here) and DRC (with default settings) will have nothing against it I believe you can have this PCB being made by probably each PCB factory all over the world.
If you need to change some parameters in board setup it would be good to understand what you are doing as it can lead to impossible to produce PCB. But if you think about doing PCB yourself you should be able to understand settings meanings.
I must confess to occasionally making my own PCBs (though not very often).
I still have about 3 sq. M of blank single sided board kicking around the shed. Some of it is museum quality, dark brown in color, phenolic and paper stuff that has been around since Adam was a boy.
Iron on the photo resist, jiggle in the acid, drill some holes. It is good to keep in practice, sometimes. 
I’m a firm believer in:
If it is business, do as the customer wishes.
If it is hobby, do as you wish.
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Guess what, I’m a PCB designer and I send my jobs to internet facing fabricators. Of course I’m not a good designer, in fact I’m a horrible hobbyist one. The point is KiCad brings to the masses the capability to make professional designs that were once only possible with very expensive proprietary software, thanks to open source software and a great development team.
You need to get up to date with developments in the open source world.
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Simplify the rule: If it’s a hobby, you’re the customer. So always do as the customer wishes. Of course you risk schizophrenia if you are the customer and you argue with the customer. 
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Ohhhh,
I’ve missed these sort of comments over the last few weeks!
Yes, for your specific needs and as a beginner focusing on basic circuits, it would be beneficial to create and manage your own libraries in KiCAD. Since you are working on simple circuits and don’t require extensive libraries with surface mount components, taking control of your libraries allows you to tailor them to your specific requirements. At the initial stages, I used https://essays.edubirdie.com/engineering-assignment-help for self-assessment, which I also recommend to you. This way, you can organize and include only the components that are relevant to your learning goals, making the design process more streamlined and less overwhelming. I believe managing your libraries gives you the flexibility to create a library that aligns with your educational needs in analog and digital electronics without unnecessary complexity.
@ preWarp Please tell me how you’re doing now, how the past three months have been.
Indeed it is good to make your PCBs . You will learn lots about milling and being a machinist.
You’ll learn about isolation, clearances, courtyards, vias etc you’ll learn the hard way ! hands on which is good.
Isolation milling has its limitations, especially when how flat the PCB is and the varying thickness. But for simple stuff, guitar effect boxes, it works OK. I would suggest the OM use DIP versions of the AVR packages etc and isolation milling should be quite acceptable.
When I started assembling my own boards with a machine that is no better way to understand when you make it hard for yourself or the fabricator. Now I have a $300k PnP line and there is one thing I have learned- when I in the past sent my boards out to be assembled, they got all the stress ! Now I get all the stress. I realised I just paid someone else to have the stress.
Of course that’s for boards with 700 parts and a thousand $ of them.
I still hand assemble some prototypes . That is very common. And it is also enjoyable , like I guess gardening. Sometimes if I have some QFN or something on a simple PCB, I will get a small stencil made and tape in down and hand stencil and hand solder it. . rather than get a giant 500x500 stencil made for the printer… Many of my PCBs are RF amplifiers etc , they have larger SMT parts… SMT is so much easier than thru hole.
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