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Lettering and offsets

Discussion in 'CNC Mills/Routers' started by Ampman, Mar 15, 2021.

  1. Ampman

    Ampman New
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    Been playing with my CNC OX and it seems to be going pretty good. Worked out a couple of bugs but happy, made a HELLO WORLD and a couple of name plates just playing with different fonts. I have been designing up a sign for my brother's BBQ area at his house, it's about 11x8 inches and when it goes to do the letters, I stated no offset and it cuts the letters and they start to blend together so you really can't make out some of the letters, I am using an 1/8 inch straight spiral bit. Now I am wondering about the offsets in the CAM program when doing toolpath and gcode. I have included a copy of my work I want to cut in PNG format

    Thanks in advance
    Steve aka Ampman bbq2.svg-rect10-582.png
     
  2. Giarc

    Giarc OpenBuilds Team
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    Is the 1/8" endmill wider than the lines of the letters by chance? That would cause them to get to close to each other.
     
    sharmstr likes this.
  3. Peter Van Der Walt

    Peter Van Der Walt OpenBuilds Team
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  4. RobFromLDMS

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    I've had some success with a program called F-Engrave. It is simple, and works quite well. The big issue is getting hold of decent single line / stroke fonts (truetype fonts are all based on a filled outline).
    F-engrave allows you to vary letter and word spacing as you like.
     
  5. David the swarfer

    David the swarfer OpenBuilds Team
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    Being a dedicated Sketchup with SketchUcam user I would do this as 2 cuts.
    1st op is a pocket with a small tool that fits inside the letters, to pocket out the letters.
    2nd op is a V-bit that only cuts the outlines of the letters, to give a sloped side.

    An alternative is a Vbit with a large enough flat on the tip that it clears the interior of the letter while it is cutting outline of a pocket operation. One will have to play with the 'bit diameter' a bit to fool it into doing what you want.

    .
     

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