Where to get aluminum laser cut?

ericandrewlewis · 03 Apr 2015, 13:37

I'm planning on building a keyboard using matt3o's Brownfox design, which is built out of aluminum.

I've started to fish around for aluminum laser cutter vendors. The first quote I got is $650. Is this expected? Seems high to me. Does anyone have any preferred vendors for laser cutting aluminum?

metalliqaz · 03 Apr 2015, 17:42

That's too much. It's definitely expensive, though. Small scale jobs are killer.

If you're doing alu, look for water jet cutting. Any laser that can do alu is going to be industrial sized, and probably more expensive.

photekq · 03 Apr 2015, 22:38

$650 is truly ridiculous. Shop around some more.

Welcome to DT

Muirium · 04 Apr 2015, 02:15

Indeed.

Matteo managed to cut whole keyboards worth of aluminium and steel for about 110 Euros each when we did our group builds. That was in Italy, but laser cutting is something many places do.

http://deskthority.net/workshop-f7/grou ... t7474.html

ericandrewlewis · 04 Apr 2015, 16:00

metalliqaz wrote: If you're doing alu, look for water jet cutting. Any laser that can do alu is going to be industrial sized, and probably more expensive.

The metal frame cutout dimensions for the Cherry MX Series specifies a 0.551" x 0.551" cutout, with ±0.002 accuracy. Based on those specs, I need to find a vendor who can cut with ±0.002 accuracy or better, right?

Water jet cutting vendors I've looked at offer accuracy of ±0.003 at best (e.g. Fedtech, American Tool Works).

metalliqaz · 04 Apr 2015, 16:49

I've read the Cherry MX specs more times than I can count as I've designed my project boards. Trust me, for a custom like that you don't need to worry about it so much. Doing things by hand you're going to inject inaccuracy an order of magnitude larger than that. Also, custom plates these days are so far out of spec, they barely resemble the original. The holes are always too big to allow for layout options and for opening the switch tops after installation.

See that 31-key numpad in my avatar? I had those aluminum plates cut by waterjet at bigbluesaw. They quote +/- 0.005" with a kerf size of 0.040". Honestly, I doubt they even got close to that on my parts. Does it matter? Nope. If there was any problem, I worked through it during assembly and then promptly forgot.

Like I said, doing one of anything is going to be expensive, but getting the highest accuracy is even more expensive. A sandwich-style case isn't worth it, IMHO. Outside the US will probably be cheaper, but the shipping may use up the difference.

metalliqaz · 04 Apr 2015, 16:51

By the way, if you're in the US, the_beast at geekhack used to be able to do nice plates for super cheap. I'm not sure if he's still in business, but it's worth a shot.

gianni · 04 Apr 2015, 17:04

I received this suggestion, not tried it though
http://www.lasermaster.co.uk/

gianni · 22 Apr 2015, 11:02

Lasermaster asked for $100 for a poker plate.

LOL

LOL

LOL

chalks · 22 Apr 2015, 13:19

Was the $100 for aluminium or steel? How thick was the plate? Did that include shipping?

I'm based in the UK and so is Lasermaster, so I was thinking of using them too.

chzel · 22 Apr 2015, 13:48

Most of that cost is probably the set-up fees, so with more plates, the price per plate should drop.

gianni · 22 Apr 2015, 15:12

I asked about aluminium and steel, but received only one price, so I suppose they are quite similar..

Set up fees, maybe. But I wonder how much set up does a laser cut really need. I don't think that they spend more than a couple of minutes to look at the dwg file... And other one to load the right plate...