budget enthusiast problems.

[PlayBox]

really like some of the projects on gh they are amazing slider instead of knob, navless 75% keyboards (more like 69%/70%) but 350$ up that is not what i wanna pay for would love itin abs, acrylic, pc but metal im too poor for that, for creators of these please open source your projects and maybe sell some parts for these?

[MIGHTY CHICKEN]

Most enthusiast boards sell pcbs and plates for their boards, and many open source plates as well. This should be mostly adequate for most people to take some calipers to make their own cases. Then you could 3d print your own cases which is the only really good way for cheap one off boards


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[PlayBox]

im really interested in the slider keyboard but idk if creator will opensource it if yes maybe i can use website named pcbway (yes i learned about it from sponsor spots on yt) to get parts for it and maybe it will be in price god enough for me.

[Leslieann]

really like some of the projects on gh they are amazing slider instead of knob, navless 75% keyboards (more like 69%/70%) but 350$ up that is not what i wanna pay for would love itin abs, acrylic, pc but metal im too poor for that, for creators of these please open source your projects and maybe sell some parts for these?

Got access to a 3d printer?
Tons of free, open source designs and you can mod it however you want.

Cheap too, first will cost a bit in parts but most can be re-used. My first was like $110, but to redesign it and re-use everything is just the cost of plastic, which is a few bucks.

[Rico]

It is unusual for reputable designers to fully open source their work.
One exception I know off is Kkatano great work on the Bakeneko series of boards, that Cannonkeys used as a base to design and sell their own Bakeneko.
https://github.com/kkatano/bakeneko-60
This is a great oring mount 60% design, and there is also a 65% variant available.

Several less known designers already provide their work opensource.

First one if you like big boards is the Boston by Pylon.
Here is the geekhack link:
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=106501.msg3130406#msg3130406
And the Github link:
https://github.com/bluepylons/Boston

Here is a geekhack link of my own project, The Manta75:
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=116171.msg3109202#msg3109202
And the github link:
https://github.com/mymakercorner/the_manta75

There is surely other great boards that are open sourced, can't list them all here.
One thing to consider on your side is price of making your own, it will be more expensive to do a one off than buying a board from a regular GB.
But you could team with friends to make several units and drive the price down significantly.
You can also manufacture the parts at different timelines to ease on the expenses.
And you could still adapt the design yourself to be 3d printable (the Boston has already a design for 3d printing).

[Leslieann]

One thing to consider on your side is price of making your own, it will be more expensive to do a one off than buying a board from a regular GB.

This is important.
Generally, expect a one-off to cost 2-3 times as much as it will in bulk. So a $300 group buy board, is likely to cost you nearly $600 to replicate even if you have all of the cad files and such, and that's IF everything goes right.

It can take several thousand to get a design ready for manufacturing or a group buy and the one of the big reasons people like customs is because it's rare, open sourcing it means those people have now funded your R&D and made it easier for anyone else to get that same board which devalues theirs and you still didn't save any money and probably ended up with a lesser quality product. Yes, a few designs are open sourced but almost as a rule they were designed and funded exclusively by a single person.

You won't save any money unless you own or have access to the equipment, which is why 3d printing works, but again, only if you own or have access to use the machine. If you have to pay someone to do anything even 3d printing can get expensive really fast.