> I get the impression that experienced PCB designers can confidently whip up a prototype design and send it straight off to a fab shop, confident that it'll mo

> I get the impression that experienced PCB designers can confidently whip up a prototype design and send it straight off to a fab shop, confident that it'll mostly work and maybe require just a few tweaks. I would say most designs get better over revisions. My mistakes on first revs of boards have gone down as I got more experienced, but the thing is, I'm always trying to do tougher things on the next board I design, so it's just as likely there might be a mistake on that first rev. As such, I recommend you start SUPER simple. A lot of the early stages of PCB design will be learning the software and associated quirks. Here are two short free video series I made to service that: [Shine on you crazy KiCad](https://contextualelectronics.com/shine-on https://contextualelectronics.com/shine-on) [Getting to Blinky 5.0](https://contextualelectronics.com/GTB https://contextualelectronics.com/GTB) In the first one it's a connector, an LED and a resistor, about as simple as you can get. But it plugs into a Raspberry Pi, so you can control it with software. The second one is a standalone using a 555 timeer. It's more involved and includes more custom components. Hopefully that moves you along your path towards making boards you like. I run a course where we show much more complex things, if that's your style, but we still try to get people to do the two above first. Good luck, hardware is awesome! :-D