The question of how to produce printed circuit boards at home has been of concern to radio amateurs all over the world, probably from the very moment of the invention of printed circuit boards. 

A few years ago the choice of technologies was not so great, today, thanks to the development of modern technology, radio amateurs are able to quickly and efficiently produce printed circuit boards without using any expensive equipment. 

For PCBs that are required for reliability and long term use, It is very important to make a purchase from the most reliable manufacturer. 

This article is an attempt to summarize all the known information about the process of making printed circuit boards at home. 

Of the entire set of existing technologies, only those were selected that do not require significant material costs and are quite simple to implement.

The entire process of manufacturing a printed circuit board can be roughly divided into five main stages:

· Preliminary preparation of the workpiece (surface cleaning, degreasing);

· Applying a protective coating in one way or another;

· Removing excess copper from the board surface (etching);

· Cleaning the workpiece from the protective coating;

· Drilling of holes, covering the board with flux, tinning.

This list only considers the most common "classic" technology, in which excess copper from the board surface is removed by chemical etching. 

In addition, it is possible, for example, to remove copper by milling or using an electric spark installation. However, these methods have not become widespread either in the radio amateur environment or in industry.

Although the manufacture of boards by milling is sometimes used in cases where it is necessary to very quickly make simple printed circuit boards in single quantities. It is also important to note that in the manufacture of printed circuit boards, the manufacturer must strive to use as many components for surface mounting as possible.

In some cases, it is allowed for the PCB manufacturer to separate almost the entire circuit on one side of the board. This is due to the fact that no really feasible at home technology for metallizing vias has yet been invented. Therefore, if the board cannot be routed on one side, the other side should be wired using the pins of various components installed on the board as vias, which in this case will have to be soldered on both sides of the board. 

Of course, there are various ways to replace the metallization of holes (using a thin conductor inserted into the hole and soldered to the tracks on both sides of the board; using special caps), but they all have significant drawbacks and are inconvenient to use.

Ideally, the board should only be routed on one side using the minimum number of jumpers.

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