[Drwurm]

Originally Posted by lukevanoort

Acrylic/Plexiglass is pretty much the bane of my existance when doing electrical work. Thin acrylic shatters when drilling (except when drilling with fine-toothed holesaws... that's the only thing I have found doesn't shatter it), it shatters when cutting, it shatters when bolting, and it shatters when you look at it the wrong way. We used a lot of 1/8" acrylic on our 2006 robot (hopper walls, electrical board, and a few other things), and most of us decided never to use it ever again. Polycarb/Lexan is much easier to work with. It still shatters if you drill it really funkily or tighten a bolt too much, but it is nowhere near as bad as acrylic. I have even pop riveted 1/8" polycarb (which, I imagine, puts a lot of force on it) with no problems. Just use polycarb instead of acrylic, the cost difference isn't that bad, and it is much easier to work with.

We used 1/4 in. ABS last year. That was a bit of overkill. However, I really liked the ABS because you can treat it like you would most any other material. We band sawed and drilled and it never showed the slightest crack. It's pretty expensive stuff though.