Hey good people, should be a simple question. I am trying to cut letters with a simple line. not pockets, not contour just a simple line. when i try to use the vcarve the v bits don’t show in my selections. I just tried 5 ways from sunday with a oflute up 1/8 and it was to carve it out so only the stick letter is uncut. Please tell me what simple thing im doing wrong.
thanks
steve
V carving will only work for closed regions.
For a work-around to approximate single-line fonts see:
If you have a single line text imported from some tool which makes it (or have drawn this up by hand) apply a No Offset Contour toolpath to a reasonable depth using a suitably sized tool — a V tool could be used for this, but will be rounded at the ends — a ball-nose cutting to the depth of the radius of the tool has a better appearance.
I’ve confused myself here. Let say you have a pencil. And you draw a M. Where the graphite sits, is all I want to cut. Just lines I’m using the text in the carbide create, like times new roman.
Vcarve is when may work, but when it set the settings, it says empty toolpath.
Kind of confused here
Thanks
Steve
Ok, I get that. But why doesn’t it do that with text?
I was using that example for reference btw.
Steve
Because you are going around twice with a tool which is too large.
If you’ll upload your .c2d file we will look into this with you.
Thanks I will tomorrow Work early
Why the empty path after I select vcarve Some stuff I’m just clueless
So every text although in the list shows a single line Is a double line ? That would kind of explain this
Thanks
Steve
Is this what you’re talking about? It shows EMPTY TOOLPATH, but there is a toolpath displayed in the graphics window? Move your mouse over the toolpath listing, and it will update.
It doesn’t update That’s one of my questions
Steve
What do you
Mean going around twice ?
Not sure then. I set one up just like yours & it says EMPTY TOOLPATH, but if I move the mouse over the toolpath listing it refreshes to 8 minutes
I switched out the .125 EM for a 60degree v bit and reduced the cut depth to .005 it looks OK.
I suggest switching to the v bit and then running the file, if you like the results stop, if you want the carve to go deeper, reset the MAX DEPTH and run again until you are happy.
avionics sdgy.c2d (140 KB)
If you are using a Contour toolpath on an outline of a text, then it goes all the way around, as opposed to cutting out just the center as a V carving or a No Offset Contour will do with the central stroke as shown above.
Is that the no offest setting? I do believe I had no offest. Otherwise how do you do, or not do the outline vs center
Thanks
Steve
You have the file:
It is made up of outlines which describe a region you would like cut out.
If you assign toolpaths to follow the outline, that region is increased by the radius of the tool used:
You can see this in the Design pane by offsetting to the outside by the radius of the tool:
If using wood or a similar material, it could be cut out along the center using V carving:
which previews as:
It is not possible to use the afore-mentioned workaround for single-line fonts because the contrast of the font is too high, so that a tool small enough to cut the delicate serifs:
is too small to cut the wider strokes.
and the serifs are too small to be cut even by the smallest tool which we sell, a #121 1/32":
Another option would be to set single line text using a 3rd party utility such as the Hershey Fonts for Inkscape:
https://www.evilmadscientist.com/2011/hershey-text-an-inkscape-extension-for-engraving-fonts/
Ill do one from scratch, it would let me use vbits, and showed them with your file. but not mine. Weird. Thanks you helped a lot allowed me to illustrate my entire point of this thread. see next reply
SDguy Thank you your helping allowed me to make this crystal clear.
I used your file with the vbit and varied the depths. It helped BUT it also showed me the issue clearly. NO where is there a setting to make this font like this? at .020 it blew out the ( pocket )? at .015 it CLEARLY shows its cutting around the centerline of the text , this also makes it 2.5 times wider, which makes small fonts impossible. Ideas?
