Acrylic mounting plate: is it possible?

[mastercontrol90]

Since aluminium and steel laser cut costs a lot, I was asking myself if an acrylic 2 mm thick cherry mx mounting plate is a viable option, especially considering I'm gonna use a PCB instead of handwiring. Any suggestions?

[AKmalamute]

Plan on a second plate ... one with larger holes that won't touch the switches at all, but will support the switchplate. Cut it from the same piece of acrylic, so you'll wind up with double thickness ... might have to go a bit thinner, but it should allow the switch to 'clip' into place firmly without having to be shoved down an interminable hole like you have with the more common 5mm acrylic "plates"

[yehoshuaf]

I made one for this project:

https://github.com/yehoshuaf/m0110_matias_mod/blob/master/README.md

What's the goal?

[jacobolus]

You can’t clip into a 2mm plate, it has to be ~1.5mm. Reasonable choices are either (a) use a thick plate, like 5mm, and just accept that switches won’t really clip in properly (if you have a PCB it’ll be fine), (b) use two plates, one to clip the switches to and another thicker plate for rigidity behind it, with slightly larger holes, or (c) one thick acrylic plate, with slightly larger holes cut partway through with a CNC router or similar, to help the switches clip [this is not recommended; if you have access to that kind of equipment just use some dense wood].

[Oobly]

Since you're using a PCB I'd recommend making a 5mm acrylic plate and either mount all the electronic components on the back of the PCB or also include cuts for those. The switches will not clip in, but it doesn't matter, they'll sandwich the plate very solidly to the PBC and you'll have a very solid assembly.

I'd even make it without switch opening cutouts for maximum solidity, but you can include the cutout holes if you want to be able to mod the switches without desoldering them if you like.

I recommend swill's tool for designing the plate: https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=65189.0

[mastercontrol90]

Thanks to everyone for all the advices. By the way I'm switching to a PCB mounted design to lower costs, you can follow all the changes into this topic https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=74573