[David G4EBT]

As to the PCB aspect of things, I've been making my own PCBs for decades, either to my own design of from magazine articles, but I steer well clear of PCB CAD packages such as Express PCB.

It's evident that the software is primarily intended to design PCBs your own PCBs to be professionally made by them - not by DIY means. The tracks are far too narrow and the pads too small for home production. This is exacerbated by 'undercutting' of the tracks and pads during etching. That's not to say that others haven't successfully used the package to make homebrew PCB - I've no doubt that many have, but I see no point in setting myself up to fail by etching away large areas of copper needlessly.

Etching time is largely dictated by how much copper is to be etched away, and what generally happens is that the copper adjacent to tracks first begins to etch away, then quite large areas still need to be etched away, and during that time the etchant begins to etch sideways under the tracks and pads. As the tracks and pads created by Express PCB are so narrow to begin with, you end up with a fragile PCB and need to be very precise when drilling the pads, which risk lifting when a soldering iron is applied.

Of all the many examples of magazine artwork I've used to etch boards since the 1960s, for the same reason, I never used artwork in Elektor - simply not designed for DIY PCB creation. If - as occasionally happened - I wanted to build an Elektor project, I always bought the PCB from Elektor, which often cost less than the magazine itself and were excellent. On the rare occasions I used their artwork I beefed up the tracks and pads to make them more 'DIY friendly'. I've attached an example - it's a little PCB from Elektor many years ago for a small regulated 100mA power supply using 78xxx voltage regulators.

The tracks on the Elektor artwork were thin and the pads needlessly small so what you see below in the first pic is the artwork after I 'beefed up' the tricks and pads. But were I to etch that PCB today, It wouldn't look like that at all - I'd leave as much copper on the board as possible - it's taken me ten minutes to amend the artwork to cover areas of board which don't need etching away at all. All the holes are in the same place, the component layout is the same, but it would be much quicker to etch, and no risk of a drill slipping and miss-drilling a pad.

This is just my view based on practical experience gained over many years - I'm not knocking Express PCB, but there's no such thing as a free lunch - really, they want to make the PCB for you. As home-brewers, we can maximise our chances of success by adapting our approach t be more suited to DIY PCB production. I hope I've not provoked a 'snowstorm' of exquisite PCBs created, etched, drilled, tinned and built by forum members using Express PCB. If so, they have my admiration!

Hope that's of interest.

Every good wish with it, whatever your intentions.