I just found SendCutSend and I can't stop thinking about it.

The idea is simple. You upload a design file, pick a material and thickness, get a price on the spot, and they cut the part and ship it to you. No sales call, no request for quote, no minimum quantity.

That last part is what got me. Most of my hardware work is ESP32 boards going into houses: sensors, relays, little controllers that live in a wall or a cabinet. The electronics side is solved. You can get a dev board for a few dollars and a custom PCB in about a week. The part that always ends up ugly is the physical stuff around it. The enclosure, the bracket, the mounting plate, the faceplate with the right holes in the right places.

Usually that means a 3D print, a project box with holes drilled by hand, or a part that looks like a prototype forever. This is a third option.

What they actually do

From their own site:

• Sheet cutting three ways. Laser is the default for metals (steel, aluminum, stainless, titanium) and also does acrylic and thin gaskets. Waterjet is for heat-sensitive stuff like carbon fiber, phenolic and rubber, since there's no heat-affected zone. CNC routing handles plastics, composites and wood.
• CNC machining from 6061-T6 aluminum billet, no minimum quantity, 3–6 day lead time.
• Bending, listed as within 1 degree of accuracy, on sheet metal and some plastics.
• Hole features: tapping, countersinking, dimple forming, and PEM press-fit hardware insertion (nuts, studs, standoffs).
• Finishing: Class II anodizing in 5 colors, powder coating in 15 options, zinc and nickel plating, tumbling, deburring, and welding of bent seams.

The material list runs past 170 options. Aluminum in several alloys (5052, 6061, 7075, 2024), mild and stainless steel, brass, copper, titanium, then G-10/FR-4, carbon fiber, ABS, acrylic, Delrin, HDPE, polycarbonate, gasket materials like neoprene and Viton, even 3M VHB tape, plus birch plywood and MDF.

File formats: .ai, .dxf, .dwg, .eps, .stp and .step. If you don't have CAD at all, there's a Parts Builder with templates where you set dimensions and hole placement in the browser.

How the pricing works

Price comes from material, thickness, size, quantity, how many cutouts the part has, and whatever you stack on top (bends, taps, finish). Every hole needs its own pierce, so a dense part costs more than a plain one.

The quantity curve is steep. One of the examples on their homepage is a 3.6 × 2.5 inch part in 5052 aluminum, .187" thick, laser cut and deburred: $9.41 for one, $4.82 each at 10, $3.20 each at 100. The pricing page says volume discounts go up to 80%.

Standard orders ship in 2–4 business days, with paid rush options down to shipping within 24 hours. US shipping is free on orders of $39 or more, and Canada starts at $19. Factories are listed in Reno, Paris (Kentucky) and Arlington (Texas).

Where it fits a home automation build

The parts I keep picturing:

• Mounting plates for an ESP32 and a relay board, with tapped holes or press-in standoffs so the PCB screws straight down. No more hot glue.
• Brackets to hang a sensor or a controller box inside a cabinet or on a DIN rail, bent once and done.
• Faceplates for a wall controller. Anodized aluminum with cutouts for a small display and a couple of buttons looks like a product, not a hobby.
• Enclosure panels in acrylic or polycarbonate when you want to see the LEDs, or ABS when you don't.
• FR-4 spacers and insulators to keep a board off a metal surface.
• Gaskets cut from neoprene for anything going outside or near water.

The interesting shift is on the design side. A 2D DXF is easy to iterate on. I can sketch a plate around the real hole pattern of a board, export it, and see the price before committing. The whole loop is a file, a number, and a box in the mail. That's how software already works, and it's strange how rarely hardware gets the same treatment.

The catch, for me

Shipping is listed for the US and Canada. I'm in Brazil, so for now this is something I'd route through a US address or keep for projects there. Worth knowing before anyone gets excited about a 2-day box.

Also worth saying: I haven't ordered yet. This is a first look at what they offer, from their own pages. When I do send a file, I'll write up what came back.

Still, the fact that this exists at all, with no minimum and an instant price, changes what a one-off build can look like. The bracket doesn't have to be the ugly part anymore.