I can not handle the tiny leads of smd when I do prototyping, and am not looking to buy another desk full of tools to handle components that jump off my desk and get caught in the floor. I use thru-hole dip prototyping, so I actually have a chance to bend a lead around the board to clamp it in place for soldering.
The technology is interesting, I do understand it. I have watch alot of production videos on "how it's made" and seen the big versions where the circuit board takes a nice ride on a conveyor belt and dips down into a molten solder bath and then rises back up again. And of course there are plenty of ways to do whatever - except I am not interested in anything that small.
I have a large array of magnifying lens - that get fogged up or in the way of my hands in one form or another. So now I am trying to work on a simple digital camera mount with a 20" vga screen - to resolve fogging and the getting-in-of-the-way problems. I'd like to see some servo-operated helping hand clamps would be a real help.
I am building small desktop cnc machine to help me make circuit boards, which could just double up to do anything else I wanted - really. Clamp the part, hold the camera, steady - etc... Seems like the 3d printer heads already have an extruder - I wonder if solder spool can just fit thru that thing if I turned the heat up all the way? And I could actually use the abs extrusion to print traces on copper for an etch bath (hopefully).
I know they have shops that produce circuit boards on any level, but all I am doing is prototyping, testing, and possibly making up to 5 copies.