@Daniel_Salinas I lucked out. I found 24x24 sheets of lexan at a surplus house here. $5 each.
A note on the lexan, acrylic will work fine and is cheaper. Plus I plan on thickening up the item in the BOM. I think 3/16 will fit in the track along with the track guide and result in less rattle. The panel tends to act like an amplifier for vibration.
Well to be fair I priced most of the lexan as smoked and the front panels clear. The smoked lexan was a little cheaper. I wonder if we couldn’t do a little firm fitting with clear silicone caulking to reduce the vibrations.
@Daniel_Salinas that’s what the slot tracks are for, but they were too loose. 3/16 makes for a good snug fit.
Oh OK. Good thing I didn’t order the lexan yet huh?
The perfect thickness I have found would be 4.3mm or about 0.1725in. That fits snug, but not too snug to make assembly difficult.
@Eclsnowman @Daniel_Salinas Thicker lexan would definitely remove the rattles that I had before inserting clear plastic but it may not stop the panel vibrating when operating. The current assembly method does however make it very difficult to service as you cannot remove the panels go gain access. I may consider on future printers to have the side panels removable.
I have also found the enclosure seems to make the ABS fumes far stronger in the printing area and will need to add a extraction/ventilation unit when time permits.
I might personally look into soft clear panels that attach with snaps, like they have on boats.