1 hour ago, ianmaccormac said:

That looks interesting. Haven't seen that for about 20 years! Used to use a programme called crocodile clips and control studio that digitised the unilab systems boards and then output a pcb. I then had the students make up pcbs using the UV exposure and bubble etch tanks. There was a whole test procedure so everything could be made to work so a great motivator for them, I used to teach this with 13 year olds and they loved it. Nice to see people using this sort of thing in the hobby and being able to talk about it so well. Makes for an interesting blog. 20 days already!!!!

Thanks Ian, doing this at school (including Control Studio and PCB Wizard!) got me into this sort of thing, so it's a great thing to teach. I'll get the PCBs made in China though, it's cheaper for one, and with a resin printer already, I've got enough messy stuff in the flat already without adding an etch tank!

Thanks for the pointer to KiCad.  The Management and I are cooking up some thing Arduino based and still had a hole in the "How?" part that covered the "sticking it all together in a way which isn't a mess of wires".  She's now looking into designing a board and how we can make it.  Whole new world opening up

35 minutes ago, jeff_p said:

Thanks for the pointer to KiCad.  The Management and I are cooking up some thing Arduino based and still had a hole in the "How?" part that covered the "sticking it all together in a way which isn't a mess of wires".  She's now looking into designing a board and how we can make it.  Whole new world opening up

No worries - it's a cracking bit of software considering it's free. Happy to answer questions if you need, but there's loads of online tutorials too, it's got a massive following in the maker hobby.