I managed to create a clean SVG of it in inkscape, but I haven’t figured out a good way setup my CAM passes to engrave it. I want to mill out the black area of the image, but it seems like most engraving operations are designed to follow a path. In this case though, it’s not a path per se. The SVG ends up being path outlines around the area in black I want to mill.
My first attempt did some pocketing/clearing with a 1/16" endmill so it could reach more of the nooks, then a countour with a0.5mm ball end mill to clean up the edges.
Any help appreciated. I get the feeling I’d probably need to create/modify the SVG to be more machineable?
I made a model, planted the SVG on it and extruded the black area into the block, more or less the same result as what you suggested. Maybe it’s the cheap test pine wood, but I’m not super happy with the result. I’d also like to use the engraving functionality since I ordered a nice 1/4" collet and 60 degree vbit to use for things like this.
My complaint about my existing CAM.
It took forever to cut (about an hour) since I had to use the small endmill to get into the nooks and crannies. The piece of wood is ~110mm by 135mm for reference.
It feels like I’m doing this wrong. I thought the point of an engrave was wider lines using the width of the cutter, so wider bits would be deeper, narrower would be shallow. That said, the SVG inkscape produced was two lines that outlined the black space. I can’t attach SVG due to forum rules, but I can attach a picture of how it imported into 360.
Maybe try redrawing the outline to work better with your V bit ? It won’t look exactly like the original but V carvings look pretty cool and will cut way faster. If you do the preview in fusion with the stock visible it gives you a pretty good idea of what it will look like.
So the more common way to do such a carving (large pockets not just small text) is to do a tool change. I will use estlcam as an easy example. you can tell it to do the bulk clean out with a flat endmill of any size (fast), then change to a V bit and it will do all the rest and can even make sharp points by carving all three axis at once.
Tool changes? Ohhhh tough, so many ways to do it and it depends if you have dual endstops or not. With dual follow my gcode on the milling basics page, re homing the Z at the change…touchplate…without them some old guy coding made a video showing 3-4 way to do it.
I have the dual endstops. I am trying to figure out how to clear out with an and mill then switch to ball or V. I have tried some googling for ESTLCAM specific videos. Old guy has a vcarve video but doesn’t go over the Inlay or the rough cut, Atleast that I have found. Once I clear out my shop backlog this will me more of a priority. Let’s see how long that takes. Lol.
Thanks all. I think I’d have to redo the art to use fusion still. It sucks since sometimes you want to just grab an image and cut something cool. That said, I understand things usually aren’t that simple
On the upside, I tried F-Engrave and it dealt with the black areas as I expected. My new 1/4" collet and new vbit arrived so I tried it out tonight. Not perfect, but a lot closer! At first I thought the gcode was bad, but no, just a super slow feed rate. It called for f127.0, I replaced with f500 but I think it might have been cleaner slower? Could also be the 4 flute vbit I got or the soft pine.
Software is pretty bare, but has some nice features. It will generate a clean up toolpath to use a bit fat flat endmill to speed things up a bit, as well as vbit cleanups. I think with some settings tweaks I’ll be ready to try on some nicer wood!
