Thanks for the heads-up on vancouver.hackspace.ca and I'll see if I can get into town for that. I have to go Lee's this week to pick up a bunch of stuff for our B737 cabin simulator, so I'll ask them about PCB production.
BTW, does anybody have a recommendation for schematic design (maybe simulation?) and PCB layout s/w to run on Mac OSX ? I could also do this on Windows but having it on my MacBook will make things portable.
Regarding h/w design, half the fun is to kluge something together and see how it works !! With the simulator business we are always designing/building one-off's, and our shop is reasonably equipped to do such. We use SolidWorks to get a design on paper (so to speak), and although it is extremely good it does not replace real engineering expertise I'm sorry to say.
SolidWorks is really overkill for a hobbyist project, and very expensive too, but I've found over the years it is best to get a design established as early as possible and then evolve form there. That generally stops uttering "duh !!" many times when you find out you've forgotten something. I'm sure there are alternatives to SolidWorks, but we selected it mainly because it is compatible with data we get form the aerospace industry.
best, Bob...