Cutting Acrylic With Your CNC Router

Acrylic, a versatile and durable plastic, reigns supreme in the world of CNC machining for its transparency and resilience. To harness its full potential, here are essential tips for seamless acrylic cutting on your Tekcel CNC router.

Setting Up Your CNC Machine For Acrylic:
To ensure precision and optimum performance, follow these steps

Material Hold Down: Effective material hold down is essential for quality cutting operations. Make sure you have a freshly skimmed sacrificial bed surface, free from debris and that your vacuum pump filters are cleaned. Always test the hold down efficiency of your material before live cutting you job.
CAD/CAM: Artwork and toolpath editing are key to making sure your design is the smoothest it can be with regards to points, curves & lines etc.

Material: Whether you’re cutting Cast or Extruded Acrylic, always buy the best brands you can, as this can make a huge difference in cutting performance and edge finish quality. It also has a big effect on tooling life as well.
Swarf Extraction: Removing cutting debris and swarf during the cutting process is very important and is one of the key factors in high quality edge finishes. Always start with clean filters and an empty swarf collection unit.
Tooling & Collet: Probably the most important part of the process is using the correct high quality tooling for the job. Use only the best micro-grain solid carbide, balanced tooling and always use single flute up spiral technology. Make sure your collets are in great condition and not old and worn. Feeds, speeds and cutting techniques are very important too for best performance cutting. https://completecnc.co.uk/products/plastics-metals-acm/cp-single-flute-cut-polish-acrylic/
Cutting Techniques: Utilising various cutting techniques for various materials is essential and none more than cutting acrylic. We would always recommend at least 2 passes for the best cutting results, depending on material thickness (1st pass + finish pass) This will give the opportunity for the swarf to be fully removed during finish pass and to create a fine edge finish. Ask us about cutting techniques for materials.

Enhance Efficiency with Complete CNC Solutions

At Complete CNC Solutions, we're dedicated to optimising your router's performance. Implement these tips for flawless acrylic cutting results. Contact us today to explore how we can meet your CNC router needs.

Call us on 01934 742186 or you can Email info@completecnc.co.uk