I’m receiving my Shapeoko Pro 5 tomorrow and I forgot to get endmills for it. I’m also confused on which I should buy. The business I’m in is doing electrical work on boats. I bought the CNC machine to create boat panels/switch panels made from acrylic/plexiglass. The work I’m pretty much Will be doing looks like the photos I posted. I need help knowing which to use and what paint do they use. It’s mainly just lettering, Drilling the holes, logos, and just holes for the switches, GPS, controls for the motor, etc.
I haven’t tried engraving on acrylic but for the cut outs, single flute endmills work great. For the engraving, vbits would probably work well. Or drag bits like the MC Etcher would also be a good choice.
1 Like
what sizes would I need you think? I was thinking on ordering from amazon since it would come faster
You can never go wrong with 1/4" and 1/8". You’ll likely find they are your most used endmills for cutting.
2 Likes
You can buy bits for plastic, try google.
I find single flute bits and playing with Feeds and Speeds works.
Upcut bits to remove chips
2 Likes
Single flute upcut bits which state they are designed for acrylic. Carbide uncoated bits work well and stay sharp. For the pieces illustrated below, I used an 18,000 RPM spindle speed with 1mm stepdown, 50% stepover and 1500mm/min feed speed and held the parts with four 2 x 1mm tabs. The rotational speed ensures an efficient cut at speed and moving the cutter through the material quickly ensures that the acrylic does not melt onto the cutter.
Also consider how much lateral load you are placing on the cutter. It is always worth testing your material with your selected values and watch the cutter’s progress. Listen for any noises that indicate the resistance of the material to the cutting values selected. If anything sounds laboured, it is and it will shorten the cutter life, dull the cutting edge and potentially break cutters early. In my images, you can see how an effective choice leaves you with sharp, finished edges.
1 Like
There are some videos which you may find helpful at:
2 Likes
Is there a store that sells these bits and engravers in person ? Or one that’s online that will come quicker ? I’m based in Miami Florida
Some specialty woodworking shops such as Rockler or Woodcraft may have such tooling in stock.
Big box stores will have some router bits which are suited for use in a CNC.
Using Harvey’s “Find a Distributor” page I was able to get in touch w/ a local company which sells CNC tooling which was gracious enough to let me drop in, provide me with a bunch of (very educational) sales literature, discuss my project, and then when I decided on tooling to buy, allow me to drop off a check, and then pick up my order later that week when their shipment came in.
1 Like
I have a switch plate mounted in the front of my Bass boat I’d like to replace. Is there a particular specification or grade of acrylic / plexiglass that you’d recommend that would hold up to the hot summer sun?
1 Like
2 Likes
I’m actually curious myself, I will be going to a place that does switch panels since they’re giving me some acrylic to practice on I’ll ask them and come back to reply again
1 Like
Hi Rey,
As stated above single flute endmills are the way to go with acrylic.
(I’ll include links to our selection of endmills at the end of this post.)
- 1/4" and 1/8" will be single flutes. By the time you get to 1/16" and 1/32" those will be Two-Flute cutters.
- Do not use downcut endmills. You’ll find yourself melting the material and chip welding pieces everywhere.
- You’ll also want to get some Diamond Tip Drag engravers for the fine detailed work of lettering and logos or engraving from the backside for edge lit panels.
- The Engrave Toolpathing is part of Carbide Create Pro which now also includes Climb or Conventional cutting. Using a climb finishing pass may produce a cleaner edge finish when that is required. (link for Pro is below)
- This video has some terrific information on working with acrylic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpdtxEyLlzo
Acrylic tends to behave a bit like a metal. You have to machine it similarly. Be sure you are creating chips which are being removed from the cut line. Go too slow and you’ll melt the material. You should have a steady flow of chips flying off the workpiece.
One final thing, you might consider flame polishing some edges. I’ve done that on a few acrylic projects.
Remember, learning to machine a material as finicky as acrylic will take some experimentation. Dialing in your feeds and speeds through trial cuts will benefit your more critical customer projects. Chart your settings and materials for your own reference and success.
Welcome to the Carbide 3D Family. Great things ahead.
- Kevin
LINKS
5 Likes
I prefer to work with cast acrylic versus extruded acrylic as the extruded tends to have a lot of stress from the extrusion process.
4 Likes
Im not sure about your usecases but i find polycarbonate is tougher than perspex/acrylic. I use it for dustboot plates. Mills ok but is mich tougher to break.
2 Likes
How about to make the countersunk portion for the screws can fit flushed and also to make the holes for it? The standard for boat panels are a size 6 screw.
Measure the heads of the screws and make a corresponding inset around your hole for the screw. You define the depth for that outer hole based on the thickness of the screw head. Cut that pocket first, then have the hole for the screw bored out next.
2 Likes
To build on Kevin’s suggestions, I would also recommend the Amana single flutes. Plastic single flutes are different/sharper than general purpose/aluminum single flutes. They can sometimes net you cleaner cuts.
Also, for the sake of maximizing your financial investment, I’d recommend first doing a few tests with basic endmills (ex. 102, 201), until you understand what “reasonable” speeds and feeds are for a given material/machine. Then you can try swapping to different endmills. It would be heartbreaking to buy a premium cutter and snap it in the first 30 seconds…
3 Likes
I don’t think anyone has mentioned it here so I will suggest.
I cut wood items on my 3XXL for the past 3 years with little or no problems (other than those of my own challenges/learning).
However, I started cutting cast acrylic last month and started getting “connections to cutter lost” errors and path cuts stopped in their tracks. Over and over this kept happening even though I had, I thought, all my grounds in place on all my plugs for router, CNC electronics, dust collector and computer.
After LOTS of problems with loss connections, I finally decided to run bare copper wire to the dust collector, dust hose, X rail and both Y rails all to a grounding block and then from there to a separate electrical plug with only the ground pin connected and then plugged into a separate outlet from any other devices.
Since doing that, I have had no further communications drops between the CM and the 3XXL.
A word to the wise is sufficient. Wish I had listened sooner.
Have fun with you project.
3 Likes
You can also add a Laser to your machine for cutting acrylic.
1 Like