Simple but satisfying acrylic job

I wanted a custom cover for an electronic gismo I am working on, and happened to have a few remaining acrylic sheets from Carbide3D (the one I used had a paper-ish protection on each side, which helps a lot to get a clean cut):

2-flute 1/8" square endmill
12.000 RPM
Feed rate 700mm/min
plunge rate 150mm/min
DOC 0.027"

Turned out exactly like I wanted, with almost no clean-up required.

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USE A PRACTICE PIECE Just in case you do want to do some cleanup: Try this to do something like “polishing” the interior of your cells, use some solvent (try MEK) with a cloth dampened with solvent and wipe down the surfaces with it. OR, try dipping a cotton swab with solvent, shaking off excess, and using on the interior of the cell. Be very careful as runs of solvent down the surface of the material will do just the opposite to that surface. IF you ever decide to use something like your cell structure with LED lighting all of those surfaces should show much better quality of light rather than deflecting most of it.

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That’s really cool… Might have to create some kind of custom raspberry pi cover like that or something! Thanks for sharing!!

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Looks great! What source did you use for acrylic sheet, if you don’t mind sharing?

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We have them in the shop at: https://shop.carbide3d.com/collections/materials/plastic

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Yep, what Will said.

Actually I got this one as a side gift from the cutter giveaway contest reward last year, it had been sitting in a corner of my shop since then so I finally put it to good use. Now that I know they machine well, I will definitely use more of these.

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I just read the thread again and I wondered if it would be possible to use a 1/4" mandrel with a very fine sand paper and then a polishing cloth to clear up something like this on the inside of the holes. You certainly would lose SOME material, but not much. Some day 2 or 3 years down the road I may actually have to try that.

Probably worth a try. But actually I like it this way and I am pretty sure I would ruin it I tried to polish it, so I will keep it as is this time. Some people use a flame to clear the sides of acrylic pieces, I will try that someday too.

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Hey, Julian: I didn’t mean for you to try it on this job. It looks too nice. I’m just ruminating on what-ifs. We used to clean edges up with chemicals. We tried with the flame throwers (tiny torches) but it was way too easy to either mess it up burning it or messing up the flat surfaces. Always try something like that on scrap stuff before you touch milled/cut items as a best practice.