Designing plates/cases?

[Bandit]

I am quite new to the whole keyboard building scene, but I feel like I'm learning pretty quickly. One thing none of the guides I've read have gone in depth about is making plates and cases. Most kind of gloss over this topic. So my questions are things like

Do my holes need little notches in them? I've seen it done both ways. What are the benefits and drawbacks of them?

What software is best for this/easiest to learn? I have very little experience with 3d modeling outside of Google Sketchup.

How big/far apart do the holes need to be?

How thick does the gap between the top and bottom need to be?

Is laser cutting the way to go? What material is best?

etc. Thanks in advance for the interesting discussion and (hopefully) answers!

[iamtootallforthis]

I would message swill as he has programmed a plate builder and definitely knows more than me (I don't know anything). I would also talk to jdcarpe and samwisekoi as I know they could help as well.

[phishy]

Read through this thread https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=65189.0 and use swill's tool to design your plate.  If you're doing a plate mount build and hand wiring your matrix, you can just use the regular cutouts.  Depending on what kind of case you wants will really decide where to go from there.  If you're going sandwich style, that tool makes the layers you need to do so.

As far as getting it cut, check out big blue saw.  They have pretty much every material you'd need available to help you on your journey.

[CPTBadAss]

1) Do my holes need little notches in them? I've seen it done both ways. What are the benefits and drawbacks of them?

2) What software is best for this/easiest to learn? I have very little experience with 3d modeling outside of Google Sketchup.

3) How big/far apart do the holes need to be?

4) How thick does the gap between the top and bottom need to be?

5) Is laser cutting the way to go? What material is best?

1) Removable openings so you can take the tops of the switches off and replace the internals. Less desoldering required.

2) AutoCAD and Autodesk Inventor offer free student copies and I currently use Inventor at home. I would prefer Solidworks but the licenses are expensive and I don't use it enough to justify the price.

3) I'd check the CAD Resources thread and swill's tool[/url].

4) Plate thickness should be .060"

5) Laser cutting gets you tighter tolerances than waterjet cutting. The process time is faster than CNC milling and should be cheaper. I think most people go with laser cutting their plates. Material-wise, I prefer stainless steel. Other plate materials are acrylic, polycarbonate, and aluminum. There's no "best", just what you prefer in materials and what process works for your material/budget.