I was talking to people at my school about etching PCBs (we still have a lot of supplies in a storage room that have been there forever) but people were telling me that we could just use some of the small mills that we have to do that, instead of fudging around with chemicals. I've been looking at Eagle PCB and rapid-pcb.com, but I haven't taken the leap into any of that yet. Does anyone have any experience with anything g-code at all or STL cad files for something like this? Our CAD and prototyping people said they'd be more than happy to help, but I've zero experience in this and I think people will be looking at me to come up with circuit ideas and PCB layouts for them to do the actual machining from.
Also I'm looking for projects to make that go a bit beyond a breadboard and have some utility or at least could stand as part of a centerpiece type project, if anyone has any ideas. I was looking at things like nixie clocks, tube amps and analog synths but I feel like I'm veering off into an odd direction with those. The other direction I felt pulled towards was rasberry pi/arduino projects or other things microcontroller~ish but I'm afraid that might turn out to be a really narrow focus as well.
Finally, does anyone have a suggestion on non-curriculum circuit collections along the lines ofEncyclopedia of Electronic Circuits Volume 1? I knew someone who had a copy and had a chance to thumb through it, but after reading some of the reviews online (especially the later volumes) I'm getting the impression that there's a lot of mistakes, there are some circuits that don't work at all and that some people don't seem to find the books to be reliable/accurate. I just wanted to have some sort of reference of useful/interesting circuits without having to sort through the entirety of the internet.
Also I'm looking for projects to make that go a bit beyond a breadboard and have some utility or at least could stand as part of a centerpiece type project, if anyone has any ideas. I was looking at things like nixie clocks, tube amps and analog synths but I feel like I'm veering off into an odd direction with those. The other direction I felt pulled towards was rasberry pi/arduino projects or other things microcontroller~ish but I'm afraid that might turn out to be a really narrow focus as well.
Finally, does anyone have a suggestion on non-curriculum circuit collections along the lines ofEncyclopedia of Electronic Circuits Volume 1? I knew someone who had a copy and had a chance to thumb through it, but after reading some of the reviews online (especially the later volumes) I'm getting the impression that there's a lot of mistakes, there are some circuits that don't work at all and that some people don't seem to find the books to be reliable/accurate. I just wanted to have some sort of reference of useful/interesting circuits without having to sort through the entirety of the internet.