[mschuster91]

> Whatever happened to making them at home?

That method works for creating single sided PCBs with through-hole components or rough SMD parts. Double sided PCBs are more effort but still possible.

But everything more complex than that - multiple layers, blind or buried vias, fine-pitch SMD, anything involving clock frequencies higher than say 50-100 MHz or depending on specific impedances or capacitances, or requiring stuff like vias to groundplanes to dissipate heat in copper? No way even for a dedicated hobbyist. And you need special equipment to make a proper stencil if you can't use a soldering iron due to feature size or because it's impossible otherwise (=BGA parts).

And where it gets really spicy is sandgrain sized SMD parts (0201 and smaller). Even for professional repair shops, that size requires experienced experts...