Building a Honeycomb Work Surface for the Ray5 20W

A honeycomb aluminum bed raises your material off the laser base, allows air to circulate underneath, reduces flashback, and lets you use pin workholding. It's one of the best Ray5 upgrades.

Why Honeycomb?

Without honeycomb: Material sits on the stock grid — smoke gets trapped under, underside can burn from flashback off the metal base.

With honeycomb: Air flows freely underneath, flashback is minimized, you can use T-pins to hold flexible materials flat.

Buying vs Building

Buy: 400×400mm aluminum laser honeycomb panels are inexpensive on Amazon (~$15–25). This is the right call.

Build: Not worth making — the aluminum punching process is too complex to DIY.

Look for: 1.5mm thick aluminum honeycomb, 1.5–2mm cell size.

Installing / Sizing

Ray5 work area is 400×400mm. A standard 400×400mm honeycomb panel fits exactly.

Options for mounting:

• Lay flat on the existing laser bed (no attachment needed)
• Cut down to fit if larger than work area
• Machine small legs from HDPE if you need to elevate it precisely

Material Height Adjustment

With honeycomb adding height, your Z (focus) height changes:

• Re-run focus calibration after installing honeycomb
• Honeycomb thickness is typically 12–20mm
• Adjust laser head height accordingly

Pin Workholding

Metal T-pins (sewing pins) poked into honeycomb cells:

• Hold leather, fabric, foam flat without tape
• Create borders to butt material against
• Non-destructive — reusable setup

Maintenance

• Clean regularly — ash builds up in cells
• Compressed air blast to clear debris
• Occasional soak in water + scrub with brush
• Will warp over time from heat — flatten or replace when significantly warped