Yes -Read post- In order for anyone to be able to help you you're going to need to provide more information than that. What kind of acrylic? dimensions? thickness? What kind of machine do you have access to? Mill? Lathe? laser? waterjet?Plasma? What are its capabilities? since most people seem to mean a mill when they say cnc ill assume that's what you're planning to use in which case the deciding factor will probably be getting a low enough spindle speed to avoid burning the acrylic. Captain Slug is the man to ask about machining acrylic but I don't think I've seen him around for quite a while. Moriquendi
Well, probably not more than 10mm thick. Probably 5-6mm. Lathe, mill, and plasma. Not really sure how powerful the machines are, but they're pretty new. They're in a local shop.
Then yes, yes, no. Plasma will melt it. need either a laser for thin or a waterjet. Hell, scroll saw does a bang-up job of it. the captain is certainly the go-to man, but as I machine it a few times a week... Careful on feed speeds, and keep it cool, or you get a gummy, melted mess and no acrylic left. Anything that will cut Al will breeze through it, and a CNC with controlled feed rates will do a beautiful job of it. More than one person here has lathed or milled acrylic, and more than one company lasers 1/2" acrylic.
-Cutting plexi with plasma sounds like fun! They'd probably kill you after they had to put out the fire...and pry scorched goo out of the machine. Several people here use cnc mills.
Sorry mate, I wasn't suggesting that the captain is the only man with acrylic skills but he was the man who came to mind at 4:30am Moriquendi
i've done stuff that thin and even thinner on a mill before. the problem you run into is that it will push the acrylic if the spaces between the cuttings get too thin. other than that just watch your speeds and feeds and not go too fast or else it will melt. easy enough
I lol'd at the plasma, if you could figure out how to cut plastic with plasma or Wire EDm you could probably make a fortune. Waterjet is prefered because it leaves no fumes, Most places with lasers aren't capable of cutting plastic because they don't have a fume extraction system. I've cnc'ed a decent amount of plastic, check project orbitoid. I used a convential CNC mill for detailing, and I used a local plastic company that had a dedicated CNC router for doing the big work. Routing, laser and milling are probably the most common, routing and laser are the fastest
actually you can edm plastics. they make sweet new plastics that are conductive and you can wire or electrode. However i have yet to see any conductive acrylic as of yet, but that does not mean that it does not exist.
