Makrolon Plate
Posted: 03 Feb 2016, 15:14
Heya,
a friend let me use his laser cutter for a few days and I've been experimenting with it a little.
Wanted to cut some polycarbonate plates some B.face PCB I have laying around.
Here's some things I learned :
1) Acrily works great, cutting and cleaning it is just a pleasure but it's very brittle.
2) 1.5mm is the plate strength you'll want for Cherry MX switches
3) This is the best site on the planet if you're making custom plates: http://builder.swillkb.com/
4) Makrolon is crazy stuff
So after some successful acrylic cutting, I've been looking for a challenge and ordered some Makrolon plates. I wasn't aware of how different this stuff is. It burns so fast and cuts completely differently than acrylic. It's not brittle at all and flexes easily. It turns amber where cut and looks completely messed up after cutting but can be cleaned up really nicely. Here's some pic from the progress:
http://imgur.com/a/EkClf <=== Bottom to top, I suck at imgur-ing
I cleaned the Makrolon plate and painted it with some Plasti-Dip spray paint.
a friend let me use his laser cutter for a few days and I've been experimenting with it a little.
Wanted to cut some polycarbonate plates some B.face PCB I have laying around.
Here's some things I learned :
1) Acrily works great, cutting and cleaning it is just a pleasure but it's very brittle.
2) 1.5mm is the plate strength you'll want for Cherry MX switches
3) This is the best site on the planet if you're making custom plates: http://builder.swillkb.com/
4) Makrolon is crazy stuff
So after some successful acrylic cutting, I've been looking for a challenge and ordered some Makrolon plates. I wasn't aware of how different this stuff is. It burns so fast and cuts completely differently than acrylic. It's not brittle at all and flexes easily. It turns amber where cut and looks completely messed up after cutting but can be cleaned up really nicely. Here's some pic from the progress:
http://imgur.com/a/EkClf <=== Bottom to top, I suck at imgur-ing
I cleaned the Makrolon plate and painted it with some Plasti-Dip spray paint.