How do you feel about slightly thinner 0.22" extruded acrylic for the 611 plate?
https://www.lowes.com/pd/OPTIX-18-in-x-24-in-Clear-Acrylic-Sheet/3502292
My local library has a laser cutter I’ve been wanting to play with…
I was also thinking an acrylic or polycarbonate plate would be nice to see what’s going on… according to google MDF is a third more rigid than acrylic so you would want to go thicker rather than thinner. Washers are your friend.
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Great point. I picked up a sheet of this because I have another use for it anyway. It’s got a slight curve to it, might could just call it pre-load…
Cast acrylic works better in the laser cutter. Also, if the acrylic isn’t flat in the bed, it can be a bite to flatten to cut through. Weldon as a solvent glue would allow you to sandwich two sheets together to get something fairly rigid. Also, if you can find a thicker sheet of acrylic, a 40 watt laser could cut through with multiple passes. Maybe even a sandwich of 2 sheets acrylic with some good quality 1/8" ply in between or vice versa. You would get rigidity with a bit of vibration dampening to relief some of the stress. Just guessing here.