The grid is a great idea. I am going to have to make one of them.

Another thing I have been meaning to make is 1/4" or 1/2" thick rulers with magnetic strips on the bottom for when I am cutting acrylic and need to put it on risers that take it above the thin rules on the machine. I just have not taken the time yet as I spend most of my day now druming up business.

I have made jigs from acrylic with holes of different sizes to put plates in and have templates in Corel where I put the information to be lasered. The blanks are all the same size with the hole centered. I lasered the size right onto the arylic and have them hung on a hook right above the laser. This seems to work pretty good for small runs as the jig stays put and I just drop in a new plate each time. I can see where the grid would be much faster on a bigger run as I could laser several plates at a once.