Basically, there's interest because there's no alternative for me. I either have to use perfboards and solder a bunch of wires, or wait a month for my PCBs to arrive through the cheap post, or pay $50 to get 10 PBCs fast when I really only need one or two and will throw the rest away.
None of these options is really viable, and if I could make a PCB myself in half an hour for $1, I would jump on that.
> None of these options is really viable, and if I could make a PCB myself in half an hour for $1, I would jump on that.
You kind of can, depending how you amortize equipment costs. This is how I've been doing this and it seems to be a good tradeoff between low initial cost, low effort and hhigh efficiency.
Up front you'll need a) a laser printer (any old laserjet will do) b) a hacked paper laminator (to increase its temperature) c) an etching tank with an aquarium bubble pump for water circulation and an aquarium heater. You'll find most of these in any hackerspace.
Then, for each PCB you'll need wax paper (even glossy magazine paper works perfectly) and copper clad FR4. Print your mask (mirrored) on the paper, clean your copper board (with steel wool, then with acetone), transfer the mask using the laminator. Then etch it.
This gives you a one-sided, undrilled PCB with 6 mil traces [1]. Good enough for the occasional SMD breakout.
That's almost good enough for me but the drilling for vias/through-holes kind of ruins it for me :/ There's no perfect home solution, so I make do with $10 JLCPCBs for now (which are cheap and fantastic quality, if you don't mind waiting).
Agreed, DIYing vias is also a big blocker for me now, which is why I only really use this method for single-layer prototypes and experiments. There's been some recent improvement in at-home via electroplating but it's still not there yet.
None of these options is really viable, and if I could make a PCB myself in half an hour for $1, I would jump on that.