Help choosing the right machine for laser engravig onto plastic.

[marko potrc]

Hello all.

I would like to ask you for your help. I am a complete "newb" at this technology so I dont know much about it.

I am a computer salesman in "3rd world country" which means there is no localisation of the computers here. That is why I will inroduce a complete new typo of notebooks to the marke, the ones with national keyboards. How will I do that? I will take US keyboards and engrave national characters onto it.

What am I thinking here..I need rather low power laser, 30W or less, and rather small machine too (I will take each key out of the keyboard and engrave it, total numbers of all keys is 28, which means they can be put on a rather small plate and engraved all together at once).

I was checking out some of the cheap "china" lasers, with 40W laser, but I dont trust them. They are very cheap and I fear that is because of poor quality.

Would you please advice me which machines to look and where to buy.

thank you!

[Peter Meacham]

Marko

What country are you needing a local keyboard for please?

Pete

[Scott Shepherd]

Seems like a very hard way to do it. There are places that make custom keys for a living. Probably a heck of a lot less expensive than buying a laser and doing all the work yourself.

Here's an example : http://www.customkeys.com/

[Mike Null]

I agree with the others. Keycaps would seem to be a good low cost option. High volume could justify custom keyboards.

[marko potrc]

Hello guys, thanks for your replies.

I come from Slovenia we have the same layout as ex. Yugoslavia had. I can look it up if you want to see how it looks like.

http://www.customkeys.com/catalog_pages/FLK_Croatian.html

The thing is i need this for laptops. Do you think its possible to order custom keys for laptops too?

I was looking for any other ways how to do it, and I did not find anything suitable. At the momment I have a deal with engraver that does this for me, and its fine quality. But the problem is it takes 3 days to do so, and if I had my own engraving machine it would be faster for my customer.

Now actually a perfect way for me would be to get a blank keys, only perhaps 3 pieces per laptop and then had them engraved or imprinted and then just swap them with original ones. But I have not found anybody that would be able to supply them.

I will check this customkeys page, thanks for the link!

[Peter Meacham]

Marko

The Custom Keys site has two products that you could use - the foreign language labels http://www.customkeys.com/catalog_pages/ShopFLL_1.html and the key puller http://www.customkeys.com/catalog_pages/shopAP_tools.html- both are inexpensive. Pete

[marko potrc]

Thank you peter, I have already mailed them about my problem.

I dont like labes, I have used them, but customers dont like them. I am selling quality laptops and when somebody pays 3000$ or more, he/she dont like to have labels on. I know some labels can be very quality and undetectable, but that would take quite some time for me to put them all on the keyboard. Thats why I have keycaps engraved rather then using labels.