Cost of one-off laser/watercutting

[Hiroyuki]

I'm curious to hear the general experiences with price of one-off laser or watercutting your plate designs.

The only company here (Norway) I've managed to get a quote from so far offered to do the job at about 250US$ for my full size layout (same cost for Alu and 304 stainless steel). Thus I wondered if it would be more reasonable to have it done abroad. My design however used rather complex cutouts and I've since been working on simplifying the cutouts to reduce cost.

If anyone have experience with other companies in Europe, Asia or NA that ships internationally it would be interesting to hear 

[DrHubblePhD]

I'm curious to hear the general experiences with price of one-off laser or watercutting your plate designs.

The only company here (Norway) I've managed to get a quote from so far offered to do the job at about 250US$ for my full size layout (same cost for Alu and 304 stainless steel). Thus I wondered if it would be more reasonable to have it done abroad. My design however used rather complex cutouts and I've since been working on simplifying the cutouts to reduce cost.

If anyone have experience with other companies in Europe, Asia or NA that ships internationally it would be interesting to hear 

That may not be an unreasonable price to be honest. Can you provide us some images or renders to give us an idea of the complexity of this build?

[Hiroyuki]

The cutout i submitted for a quote was this:
I am thinking of simplifying it to something like this: to reduce costs as I am using PCB-mounted cherries for my design.
Technically I could use no plate at all with the pcb mount, but if I can find a way I would prefer having my cherries mounted on the plate and not depending on the pcb for stability
This hobby I just acquired seems to drain my wallet faster than expected 

[azhdar]

You've tried http://www.bigbluesaw.com/ ?

He was active on the swill thread :  https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=65189.480

[CPTBadAss]

I believe non-profit GB prices for a TKL/60% stainless steel plate is around $30-50. If it's just a plate for $250, I'd try finding another company.

[Hiroyuki]

Thanks for the tips :-) I'll have a look at the big blue saw - a quick online quote gave me a price of about 100$ for the reduced complexity plate which is already a big improvement.
(I was hoping i could manage to get a plate done for somewhere around this price; ideally here due to shipping and tax - but I have ways of getting things shipped over from the states if necessary)

Nevermind - BBS it seems to have misinterpreted my layout, so that quote might not be accurate

[metalliqaz]

One-off switch plates are very expensive.  There's lots of cutting time and material used.  Without scaling up, the per-unit price is huge.  $250 honestly doesn't sound that far out.

I've done several.  I sunk thousands into my projects

[Dihedral]

I got a quote of around 40 pounds for my dihedral-79 plate here in the uk.

[mecano]

On a french forum, a user is offering others to participe to a small group buy for steel (not stainless) plates based on his previous alu plate command (one unit I guess) for an ortho layout with simplified cherry compatible mounting holes (bare squares) he got for 25€.

[engicoder]

I've had quotes for one off 60% to TKL sized plates, in stainless, for around $125-150.

[azhdar]

On a french forum, a user is offering others to participe to a small group buy for steel (not stainless) plates based on his previous alu plate command (one unit I guess) for an ortho layout with simplified cherry compatible mounting holes (bare squares) he got for 25€.

can you give me a link to that?

[The_Beast]

One-off switch plates are very expensive.  There's lots of cutting time and material used.  Without scaling up, the per-unit price is huge.  $250 honestly doesn't sound that far out.

I've done several.  I sunk thousands into my projects

Man, if you're really thinking about paying that, PM me first, I bet I can do it for half that and still be worth my while

[mecano]

On a french forum, a user is offering others to participe to a small group buy for steel (not stainless) plates based on his previous alu plate command (one unit I guess) for an ortho layout with simplified cherry compatible mounting holes (bare squares) he got for 25�.

can you give me a link to that?

Sure, hope I won't break any rule or being rude doing so, if it's the case just feel free to put me in quarantine with smelly cheeses.
Also remember that alu is cheap where steel is maybe not.

here you go

[phishy]

I just had a one off plate cut by big blue saw in aluminum for just shy of 90 bucks.  And the good thing about using them is they now have switches and stabs laying around to make sure the cutouts are right.

[swill]

I just had a one off plate cut by big blue saw in aluminum for just shy of 90 bucks.  And the good thing about using them is they now have switches and stabs laying around to make sure the cutouts are right.

To be fair, your plate was a 66% and his is a 110%, so he probably can't expect similar pricing.

BBS has been very engaged recently in an effort to ensure the services they deliver to us are quality. A couple of us have sent him components to test fit and they have purchased other stuff to make sure they have the components on hand to validate plates before they ship them. I know they have MX switches, alps switches, costar stabs, cherry stabs (PCB and plate mount).

[phishy]

I just had a one off plate cut by big blue saw in aluminum for just shy of 90 bucks.  And the good thing about using them is they now have switches and stabs laying around to make sure the cutouts are right.

To be fair, your plate was a 66% and his is a 110%, so he probably can't expect similar pricing.

BBS has been very engaged recently in an effort to ensure the services they deliver to us are quality. A couple of us have sent him components to test fit and they have purchased other stuff to make sure they have the components on hand to validate plates before they ship them. I know they have MX switches, alps switches, costar stabs, cherry stabs (PCB and plate mount).

True but mine also included a top and bottom plate where as I believe he's going for just the top, might equal it out.