I am getting ready to cut a few projects in 2mm carbon sheet. Has anyone tried this material on the Phlatprinter 3 yet? I'm interested on what might be a ball park feed rate and what kind of bit might work the best in this material to get a nice clean edge. I'm planning to do these cuts without tabs as the edge finish is pretty important. I'm willing to buy the correct bit for this application if anyone has experience or ideas for this project. I do have a pair of bore holes in the parts that are the perfect finish size using the 1/8" tile cut bit. Those bore holes are critical to the finished parts fit.

My prototype pieces were worked up with a 1/8" tile cut bit on 1/8" plywood cutting at 20 ipm using a .250 mutipass. I was pretty happy with those cuts. Hopefully, the carbon pieces will come out as well.

:questions:

 

I am planning to use a 1/8" plywood backer and some spray adhesive. I have both the low adhesion loctite spray and the 3M 77 high adhesion spray. One of two should work well enough.

On my prototype pieces I was running a 12 x 16 piece of 1/8" ply through the machine without any other aides. No problems at all, the new drive rollers and tape configuation worked very well.

Nothing special planned for the tabless cutting. I had placed small, thin tabs in the prototype but, they didn't hold and the cut outs either dropped through or held in place without issue. I don't see that being a problem.

I have a converted dust devil home vac attached to my machine. I don't know if the carbon dust will escape the filtration system or not. With the phlatboyz dust shoe and the vacs hepafilter I was thinking I would be OK for a few cuts and go from there. I'll be keeping this in mind for sure.

 

2mm carbon sheet should be minimal resistance with a sharp carbide cutter. You might get a cleaner edge with a spiral bit. I doubt that you will see much difference from cutting wood or thin lexan. Just don't let the cutter sit in one place to generate enough heat to melt the epoxy. I also would not worry too much about the dust beyond regular dust precautions as it is in an epoxy matrix. It should not be nearly as troublesome as working with the raw tow.

 

Thanks for the information. Six sheets of 2mm carbon sheet arriving next week. Looks like all I need is a new bit and the electricity to stay on between those ever present thunderstorms!

 

Thanks Randy!