"Manufacturing your own PCBs is almost never worth the effort."
It depends on the target device. For analog or simpler digital circuits prototypes where single side boards can be used it's still very convenient, with the only annoyance being the etchant treatment and disposal. In the old days I made things easier by adding one intermediate step in which I redrew the schematic as the ICs and keyed parts were seen bottom up, that is, ICs had the 1 pin up right, etc. Also the schematic wasn't arranged functionally, like an opamp drawing for example, but it rather showed how the pcb was going to look from solder side. From then on, copying it on the actual pcb became a breeze. As for drawing on the pcb, I did all by hand, using both transfer sheets with pads where necessary and thin (1mm or less) normal water resistant markers for connections, buses etc. Faber Castell and Staedtler were my favorites, as I found those specific for pcb drawing were a lot worse quality wise, not to mention like 4x more expensive.
This method would of course not scale with circuits complexity, more than one layer and or series production, still I enjoyed a lot being able to design, etch and solder even moderately complex circuits in one evening or a week end in "mom's basement" (actually dad's attic...:). With time I also trained myself to draw my schematics directly that way, so I could get rid of one step between drawing on paper and the final drawing on the pcb. I miss those days...
It depends on the target device. For analog or simpler digital circuits prototypes where single side boards can be used it's still very convenient, with the only annoyance being the etchant treatment and disposal. In the old days I made things easier by adding one intermediate step in which I redrew the schematic as the ICs and keyed parts were seen bottom up, that is, ICs had the 1 pin up right, etc. Also the schematic wasn't arranged functionally, like an opamp drawing for example, but it rather showed how the pcb was going to look from solder side. From then on, copying it on the actual pcb became a breeze. As for drawing on the pcb, I did all by hand, using both transfer sheets with pads where necessary and thin (1mm or less) normal water resistant markers for connections, buses etc. Faber Castell and Staedtler were my favorites, as I found those specific for pcb drawing were a lot worse quality wise, not to mention like 4x more expensive. This method would of course not scale with circuits complexity, more than one layer and or series production, still I enjoyed a lot being able to design, etch and solder even moderately complex circuits in one evening or a week end in "mom's basement" (actually dad's attic...:). With time I also trained myself to draw my schematics directly that way, so I could get rid of one step between drawing on paper and the final drawing on the pcb. I miss those days...