Newbie alert and nervous like a cat

[Werner1950 (Werner Peters)]

Getting a used Shapeoko 3 xxl delivered tomorrow. I am on pins and needles. Have i bitten off more than i can chew. I’m a total newbie.

[WillAdams (William Adams (Carbide 3D))]

We have documentation at:

https://my.carbide3d.com/

and esp. see:

https://my.carbide3d.com/gettingstarted/shapeoko3/

What sort of work do you wish to do? How do you wish to approach it?

What materials will you want to cut?

[stallent (Stephen)]

I was a total newbie just a mere 8 weeks ago or so. Be patient with yourself and the learning process and you will be killing it in no time. This is one of the more newbie friendly forums i’ve used so don’t hesitate to ask.

[Werner1950 (Werner Peters)]

I hope it will become a hobby. If it turns into an income, that’d be a bonus. I am semi retired.

I will be using wood mostly, and engraving. Maybe cottage signs if there’s a market for it where i live. Im on Lake Superior north of Sault Ste Marie in Ontario. I sold quite a few bird houses a few years sgo. I’d like to revive that.

[WillAdams (William Adams (Carbide 3D))]

Do you have experience with CAD or Bézier curve drawing programs?

[Werner1950 (Werner Peters)]

I do not. My wife is an artist and actually taught the art of woodburning. That’s my only claim to fame.

[WillAdams (William Adams (Carbide 3D))]

If you have existing drawings as b/w (lineart) images, they may be easily imported using the Image Tracing feature:

Carbide Create - Image Tracing

We just posted CC 520 to: https://carbide3d.com/carbidecreate/download/ 520 includes a big new feature for us, Image Tracing. [image] You should be able to load a JPG or PNG and get a reasonable set of curves from it very quickly. A few caveats: Right now, it’s mono only so color images will be converted to black and white using the thresholds in the window. We’re not optimizing for very small images so some will work well, others won’t. We’d recommend images larger than 500px on a side …

or, one may use images from our library of elements:

or, if desired, any vector clipart with a suitable license, which if it requires a bit of cleanup, is easily done:

Converting line art for drawing

Often clip art is drawn as a series of stacked stroked and filled outline, e.g., http://clipartist.net/svg/minimalistic-ray-gun-logo-black-white-line-art-svg/ which looks line, but is a confusing mess when one views it in outline mode: [inkscape_1] The solution is to expand the strokes, and punch out the white fills. In Inkscape this is done by: Path | Object to Path [inkscape_2] Then break everything apart (it is important to work in View | Display Mode | Outline) using Path | Break Ap…

And, there is a site dedicated to sharing projects:

CutRocket

and if you have any difficulties, we’ll gladly work up a custom tutorial if need be:

Tutorials

Just let us know what sort of help you need and we will do our best to assist.

[MarkE (Mark Erickson)]

There’s a thread in the gallery section called “What did you cut today.” Post anything there. Lots of people love to cheer you on and commiserate on mistakes. Everybody’s destroyed a project (this year).

[Zman (MICHAEL ZEMANEK)]

This forum is for everyone. Nervous newbie’s or seasoned professionals.

There are no dumb questions, only experiences you have yet to have.

Enjoy, don’t be nervous, I shook like a leaf my first month

[Tail-wagging-the-dog (Gary Hazel)]

Werner1950,
Fully retired here. nowhere near a NOOB any longer but still not where i want to be. Enjoy the ride, just remember to keep your tail out of the moving parts. this place rocks.

[Werner1950 (Werner Peters)]

“Just let us know what sort of help you need and we will do our best to assist.”
You bet i will.
For instance, do I have to initialize every time I restart the program?

[WillAdams (William Adams (Carbide 3D))]

@Werner1950

For instance, do I have to initialize every time I restart the program?

Yes. There is a work-around to bypass homing, but it’s a bit involved:

https://my.carbide3d.com/docs/troubleshooting-homing/#bypassing-homing-switches

Note that you can leave the machine powered on and Carbide Motion running and connected and run multiple files thus.

[JayGee (Jesse Glessner)]

IF you’re thinking about Cottage Signs don’t think about just rectangular or round signs.

You might want to try some samples with differently styled Frames and different styles of Text for some display signs that you can set out to draw attention.