Custom Makrolon Parts: 0.06″ Laser Cut Covestro Polycarbonate

Custom Makrolon parts are made by CNCROi.com in a huge variety of design profiles, using either our CNC router or CNC laser to produce the polycarbonate pieces custom to customer’s specs.

There are many different brands of polycarbonate but quite often, our customers ask for specific types to match a material data sheet to match the characteristics they wish to have for their finished custom Makrolon parts.

There is some misconceptions between PETG and polycarbonate, this video will outline a few of them, like acrylic, each plastic has their very unique material characteristics.

For this project specifically, the options were pretty open ended but I had some 0.06″ thick Makrolon by Covestro polycarbonate which closely matched the specs required so we ended-up using that for this custom Makrolon parts run.

I often get asked by CNCROi.com customers why we use one technology over another when it comes to custom Makrolon parts production, generally, the engineer has a preference but often times, the part spec themselves lend themselves to the best machine for the given task, for this specific part, the laser was the clear winner.

Stencils are a fantastic use of polycarbonate, they do have their place though, it isn’t always the best, so having a variety of capital equipment available allows CNCROi.com to use the best machine for the given job.

The advantage of the laser is that it’s a non-contact production method of production, meaning there is NOTHING touching the polycarbonate, the laser cuts it without any part of the machine (other than the bed) being in contact with the custom Makrolon parts.

Put another way, our CNC router uses a spinning bit that must make contact with the polycarbonate, and as such, X and Y forces are introduced into the sheet, so hold down is required so that it doesn’t move etc… but with the laser, there are no forces in either axis, it’s just a clean cut when it comes to custom Makrolon parts production.

The other advantage of our CNC laser when it comes to custom Makrolon parts production is that we aren’t limited by the bit diameter, our CNC router can’t use bits that are the diameter of the laser beam, as such, we get higher resolution, think very small holes etc… but this does come at a cost.

CNCROi.com regularly mixes and matches processes along with materials, although most of our polycarbonate parts are headed for industrial use, we also use it for wedding coasters too.

CNC lasers cut using energy which gets transferred into heat, which can bend, distort and warp the plastic, and this becomes more pronounced as the thickness of the polycarbonate goes up, to the point where the laser becomes the wrong choice as there is more heat generated than cutting of the custom Makrolon parts.

Another thing to keep in mind is that lasers get slower as the material thickness increases, which means even more heat build-up while with our CNC router, thickness doesn’t really have an effect on production speed to a large extent when it comes to custom Makrolon parts.

Looking at the above photo, you can see that CNCROi.com began with cutting all the inside parts first (screw holes) and then a secondary pass is performed in order to cut the shape out completely.

CNCROi.com has made parts for a wide variety of applications, from robotics for use in military applications (the bulletproof aspect of polycarbonate is a nice material quality) to stencils for schools to aerospace parts of various types.

Remember when I mentioned heat during laser cutting polycarbonate? Well, this is one of many strategies that CNCROi.com employs to maintain spec when it comes to custom Makrolon parts.

A drawback from CNC laser cutting polycarbonate is the thick yellow/black smoke produced, you can see it forming on the top (it’s worse underneath) which is very hard to remove from custom Makrolon parts.

With bigger parts that CNCROi.com manufactures using our CNC router, there is no staining on the surface of the material, unlike laser production.

The simplest solution to this is the protective masking you see on the front and back of the custom Makrolon parts, this comes right off, revealing  optically clear custom Makrolon parts, similar to what you get with our CNC router except the edge still has the burned plastic quality to it.

As a general rule of thumb at CNCROi.com, parts up to 0.06″ thick, I generally use our CNC laser while anything thicker, the production moves over to our CNC router, this isn’t a hard and fast rule but one that makes sense more often than not.

Polycarbonate is wonderful for use in stencils, they are transparent, incredibly strong, easy to clean and durable.

The issue with production using our CNC router for very thin custom Makrolon parts is that they tend to fly off, require support tabs or bend – again, this is very much design dependent, some parts we must router them out as thin as 0.01″ thick while we laser cut up to an 1/8″ polycarbonate quite easily.

As the production of these custom Makrolon parts comes to an end, you’ll notice that they are all identical, this isn’t absolutely necessary as you’ll also notice that each part is made one at a time, so if you had thousands of small parts all the same, or thousands all different, it still counts as a production run so you get volume pricing at CNCROi.com.

Keep in mind that polycarbonate is still plastic, meaning it’s flammable, so precautions are taken when ever we do a production run of custom Makrolon parts to make sure we don’t burn down CNCROi.com in the process.

Polycarbonate is a wonderful material for specific applications, it’s incredibly strong, optically clear and durability is incredible, even at 0.06″ thick, you’d need to be an incredibly angry Hulk to just rip these custom Makrolon parts in two.

A neat thing about polycarbonate is that CNCROi.com can also color change the surface of it, PERMANENTLY!

Custom Makrolon parts can be made in any quantity, design spec or thickness, it all depends on what you want done and how – CNCROi.com will ship it right to your door!

Taking a closer look at these custom Makrolon parts, ignore the ugly surface stains, under this masking is a wonderfully clear polycarbonate that will stop a bullet.

After the waste material is removed, you can more clearly see the parts, all around are screw holes, unlike acrylic, no washers are needed as unlike acrylic, these custom Makrolon parts are not brittle.

Looking for a custom Makrolon parts producer? You’ve found CNCROi.com!