Carve letters depth

Thanks Jim, I just downloaded F-Engrave last night. I am hopeful this software addresses this problem.
Don

You’ll find that F-engrave V carving works the same way that CC does. What Roger said above is good advice. If you want a bolder font choose one from the thousands available out there rather than having the machine distort one (which usually ends up with unexpected and often ugly results). If you want deeper cuts then use a bit with a sharper angle.

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Thanks again Jared, your drawings are excellent & I understand what you are illustrating. I just cannot understand why CC or CM does not allow me to adjust the maximum depth.
Will said that feature has been requested by others and he thought F-Engrave might allow it.
I haven’t had a chance activate F-Engrave yet…
Thanks.
Don

What all V-carve programs work at doing is to make the cutter edges meet the shapes outline as the tool bit point follows the shape’s centerline. They all automatically vary the depth of cut to accomplish this. If you try to override this automatic function you’ll end up with either the bit not meeting the outline or going beyond it.

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I know in more expensive CAMs you can v carve wider widths than your bit, and add a max depth settings. Like this Ram, the widest points are .32, but the bit is only 1/4".

I was using Artcam 2011, and Vectric is pretty much the same (designed by the same guy).
The bit just does a 10 percent step over, which you can not change.
May not help right now, but if you decide to get a really good CAM, Vectric is great.
It’ll spoil you pretty bad tho :wink:

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Engraving is actually a simpler process because the depth is minimal and the lines you see are just drawn on to the surface. VCarving is an attempt to mimic the look of the font (on the surface) with the V bit pushed through the material accordingly. If you want a deeper cut look for larger angle V bits OR fatter fonts.

One could easily take any font and offset it’s edges larger in CAD and then save as .SVG file and then import that and V-Carve the fatter font OUTLINE. This would be fairly easy to accomplish and the end result would be a deeper cut and a fatter font.

The calculation for the VCarve assumes the exact outline of the font is on the surface and then calculates the max width that the VBit can be driven down to in order to touch those lines.

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I wasn’t clear about the two types of multi-line engraving I do. One is the diamond point drag across a hard surface but the other is the routed variety creating the thick & thin effect e.g. Times Roman. Admittedly however, all areas are routed to exactly the same depth… not a true carving such as what we are doing with our CNC machines.

A possible option may be Estlcam’s carve option. Link = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEFFogenSvo will give you an idea of the options of V- carving with different depths.

Also, F-engrave using the “inlay capabilities” (V-bit outline of the letters and pocket mill with a straight bit to clear-out the area between the outlines.

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Apologies if someone in the thread already mentioned this. The Vectric software (I own Vcarve Pro) gives the option of setting a “flat depth” and a “flat clearing tool”. The result is a kind of hybrid between a straight vcarve and a pocket cut of the interior of the letters or other carved artwork: the sides are angled via the v-bit and the bottom is cut flat, typically using an endmill.

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one of my favorite features of VCP right there.

That is genius. Awesome hack.