This is a bit niche, but I’m designing a mechanical keyboard that I will hopefully be able to create and assemble. Finding key caps, switches and a PCB should be straight forward since I can pick up that stuff at GuangHua, but the custom case is not so obvious. Specifically, curious if anyone knows about:
Acrylic prototyping shops
Water jet or CNC metal shops
For the acrylic stuff there seems to be a mature industry due to all the signage in Taiwan, but my use case is odd so I haven’t yet found a shop that can do this work.
Turns out there are acrylic shops all over the place and they can deliver cuts the same day quite cheaply, at least for prototyping.
I didn’t figure out where the waterjet metal shops might be, although there are definitely CNC shops around so I’m sure I can find some with a bit more effort.
I’m surprise @Taiwan_Luthiers hasn’t popped in here yet, he seems to know this sort of thing. Also, I think @QuaSaShao has sought after molding expertise here, so they may have some insight/awareness to share with you.
If you wanted mold made, I don’t know what your quantity is but tool/die tend to be rather expensive but necessary for mass production of plastic parts.
Maybe you can outsource that by using key caps that are already made instead of making your own? I don’t have CNC but if you wanted simple, one off part, I can do it on a manual mill. Makes no sense doing CNC unless you are either making complex parts, or you are making lots of it. Since it’s a lot of work for CNC shops to program them, they’d want some quantity.
For acrylic just send me your design in illustrator and I can help you.