mounting on plexi

[SirPoonga]

recently I saw a cabinet that was converted, the control panel was all plexi or some other clear material.  What is that material?  It is strong enough for a tball?

[AlanS17]

Well I know you can actually take a hammer to lexan and it will dent before it shatters. Perhaps that is what it was.

Edit: Home Depot only sells lexan in 1/8" which won't break but it will bend like hell. I've never seen them carry 1/4". The only thing they carry in 1/4" is plexi.

I know the Ace hardware store here carries different materials in 1/4" so they may lexan. If you have an Ace you may wanna check there.

[hyiu]

HD doesn't carry thick plexi / lexan...

try your phone book and look for a plastic shop...
they carry plexi / lexan with all kinds of thickness...
(usually... they also have some samples in store for you to check out before buying...)

I've bought 1/2 in plexi before.... it IS strong....
(well... but last time I used it kind of for support purposes... but not use it as control panel top....)

[Ledbetter]

 

http://thebrokenjoystick.com/pictures/clear-mspac-garage

  He used 1/4" plexi on a cabaret. Don't know if 1/4" would would be stiff enough for a full length cp or hold up to a trackball without extra supports. Looks nice anyway.

[hyiu]

I do have another pic of a mspacman cab....

http://www.geocities.com/hyiu/pics/Arcade/Misc/

click on the following filename...
clear_pacman.jpg

have fun !!....

[Hoagie_one]

freaky

[anthony691]

My CP is like this:

1/8 plexi
-----------
CPO underlay
------------
1/4 plexi

I got all the supplys at HD...

You *DO* need to have support on most of the sides or it will bend! If it has support on 3 sides for a panel ~ 24" across...

No way w/o supports on the inside it could take a t-ball though.  You must consider how much people lean on them...

so mine is fine and it is like this:


 sI------------sss-------------Is
sI   1               2                Is    
sI  j   BBB      j  BBB           Is
sI      BBB          BBB          Is
sI________ssss_______Is

"s" indicates where my panel needed to touch the sides to have NO bowing.

Controls tend to add support, but I don't know about a T-ball as I don't have one.

I would guess you would need some support... (I think)

[SirPoonga]

well, here's what I am thinking of doing.  I have 3/4" mdf cp with 1/8" plexi on top.  I'd like to mount some controls to the plexi instead of the mdf.  If I cut the mdf close enough I think it would support it well enough, but I am not sure.

[anthony691]

well, here's what I am thinking of doing.  I have 3/4" mdf cp with 1/8" plexi on top.  I'd like to mount some controls to the plexi instead of the mdf.  If I cut the mdf close enough I think it would support it well enough, but I am not sure.

Yeah... this sounds about right... I don't know about 1/8 though... maybe about 5 square inches of it... not too much more...

[loksenna]

The buttons would probably be fine but the leverage of someone pulling a joystick might be a little too much.  I dunno about where you live,  but there is a local hardware shop a mile from my house that sells 3/4 inch plexi for about 75 bucks for a 5'x5' square (I can get it any size, they cut it).  Its extremely strong, though, as we use it to build subwoofers sans mdf.   It's good stuff if you can get it.

[Snarbald]

McMaster Carr sells a bunch of different size sheets of polycarbonate. would a 12" x 24" x .5" thick sheet be good enough to mount controls into, like to have a completely clear control panel?

[paigeoliver]

That Plexi-Pac has always intrigued me. I would build something like it, but it seems like it would be too hard to keep clean, and too easy to scratch or damage.