After posting about my new Rat pedal in the workbench thread, I told Shadoweclipse13 that I would write a post here with some more details on how I had my enclosure UV printed.
I had this printed by
Tayda Electronics, which for those who aren't aware, is a good source for things like diodes, ICs, etc. They also sell pedal enclosures in tons of colors and sizes. Even before I used their UV printing, I was using their enclosures for most of my projects. In addition to the color selection, they have lots of enclosures
pre-drilled for the more common hole patterns used by
pedalpcb boards. I recently decided to step up my enclosures from decal paper and try Tayda's
UV printing and
custom drilling services.
I had already been using Inkscape to do my graphics, but Tayda wants Illustrator format files for printing. As a hobbyist, there's no way I can justify paying for an Illustrator license. A few months ago I found
this tutorial from Mike at Pachyderm Pedals, which details how to do what I needed to do to print at tayda. I approach my graphics differently than Mike, but I follow his steps for Affinity Designer. Tayda specifically mentions/warns against using this software in the instructions on their site, but I think that's just them covering their ass. I have printed four enclosures now with this method and all four have turned out well. Your results may vary.
Here are the other enclosures I've printed:
An "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" themed Big Muff:
Another "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" themed enclosure, this is for a fuzz face:
a "Seinfeld" themed Frank Costanza Noise Gate:
As for the cost, it was really reasonable, especially considering these are one-offs (they do have volume discounts though).
(All prices below are for 125B sizes)
Most of their powder coated enclosures are $6. Enclosures pre-drilled for pedalpcb projects are $7. Custom drilling is $4.50 (I did this on three of the four above). The price to do a UV print is $4, and another $2 for a clear layer of gloss/matt (which I just match to the enclosure sheen listed on the product page).
So, the pedals that were custom drilled and printed cost me $16.50 (plus taxes/shipping, etc.). The one that used a standard hole pattern cost me $13! Worth every penny if you ask me.