RASTER Sign

[carrothers]

I'm carving the attached mpc. file sign for a friend. I set up the text to carve 6.25 inches on width (8.25 width board) and left 4 inches on each end. The machine read the length ok 96.25; never acknowledged the width. I chose not to stay under the rollers and said yes to center on width. It's carving out with 5 inch letters (not 6.25) and it looks like it will leave around 4-5 inches on each end. Any help would be appreciated. thanks. Pete

[fwharris]

Did you get a "scale to width" message during the start up?

[DickB]

How wide is your board? Is the text centered on the board?

[lynnfrwd]

That is an awful long board. Are you using outfeed rollers to support it and are they set up at the proper height?

[carrothers]

Yes, I have outfeed and infeed rollers to support the board. When it measured the board it came up with the right length; never said what it measured the width to be, but it did ask me if I wanted to "center on width" and I said yes. I purposely selected to NOT stay under the rollers as I had allowed 4 inches on each end of the board; and in the past when I selected to stay under the rollers it sometimes would "scale to length" when it wasn't necessary. When I first loaded the board, it read it 7 inches shorter than it was when I initially said stay under the rollers. I started over and said no to stay under the rollers and it read the length correctly. Its a 3 and a half hour carve so it's still going; but it left me with about 5-6 inches on the first end and about two inches on each side on the width when I thought I set it up for only one inch.

[cnsranch]

Yes, I have outfeed and infeed rollers to support the board. When it measured the board it came up with the right length; never said what it measured the width to be, but it did ask me if I wanted to "center on width" and I said yes. I purposely selected to NOT stay under the rollers as I had allowed 4 inches on each end of the board; and in the past when I selected to stay under the rollers it sometimes would "scale to length" when it wasn't necessary. When I first loaded the board, it read it 7 inches shorter than it was when I initially said stay under the rollers. I started over and said no to stay under the rollers and it read the length correctly. Its a 3 and a half hour carve so it's still going; but it left me with about 5-6 inches on the first end and about two inches on each side on the width when I thought I set it up for only one inch.

Sounds like it scaled your project. If your real board is 8" longer than the one in Designer (the 4" on each end you mentioned), you would tell the machine to stay under the rollers, and all would be well. If your real board is the same length as the one in Designer, but none of your carvings come within 4" of either end (again, the 4" you mentioned), you would tell the machine NOT to stay under the rollers, since you know it will anyway. If you tell the machine to stay under the rollers when the board is the same size as the one in Designer, it will scale the project - and you don't want that to happen.

[DickB]

How wide is the board that you loaded?

[Digitalwoodshop]

If it did not give you the Width measurement then it was pretty close and slightly over the designer width. I am cutting a 13 inch wide Designer Board right now but using a 13.5 inch wide board. It came back and told my my project was 13 and the board was 13.5 and to keep my project the same or make it bigger.... The point being... If it is under sized it will ask to SCALE or load another board and if too big ask too... If it is close and slightly bigger it will continue as all is NORMAL.....

That sounds like a BIG Project....

AL

[carrothers]

I put my board settings the actual dimensions of the wood and then selected a frame and made it 4 inches shorter than the length and 2 inches narrower than the width...and then centered the "frame" both vertically and horizontally. I added the text and made sure the text stayed within the frame.

The first pass in the machine, I said stay under the rollers and it measured the actual board as 8 inches shorter than it was. I aborted, and the next time I said do not stay under the rollers and it measured the length correctly (within a quarter of an inch) on a 96 inch board. I finished it after 4 hours and the text is two inches narrower than designer (it gave me a 2 inch border) and on the length it gave me 5 and a half inches on each end. Not the end of the world as the sign is usable; but still I am trying to find why it scales when I think all the inputs are correct.

[cnsranch]

I put my board settings the actual dimensions of the wood and then selected a frame and made it 4 inches shorter than the length and 2 inches narrower than the width...and then centered the "frame" both vertically and horizontally. I added the text and made sure the text stayed within the frame.

The first pass in the machine, I said stay under the rollers and it measured the actual board as 8 inches shorter than it was. I aborted, and the next time I said do not stay under the rollers and it measured the length correctly (within a quarter of an inch) on a 96 inch board. I finished it after 4 hours and the text is two inches narrower than designer (it gave me a 2 inch border) and on the length it gave me 5 and a half inches on each end. Not the end of the world as the sign is usable; but still I am trying to find why it scales when I think all the inputs are correct.

This is a great lesson for you - we've all done this type of thing until the light bulb went off.

First, the good news is that your machine is tracking properly - you're pretty darned close to the length measurement, and at 96", that's a long board.

In your first post, you said that you had 4" additional on each end - but in this one you said that the "frame" is 4" shorter, implying that it's only 2" on each end. If that's true, that is the whole problem. I'm assuming, though, that you meant 8" shorter - 4" on each end.

This is important to get in order to get the light bulb to go off - when you tell the machine to stay under the rollers, the machine will measure the board's length, and then give you a reading that is 7" shorter than the real length of the board. It does that, because that is the "carveable" area. Don't do anything else until you get that.

If every element (i.e., anything that the machine is being asked to carve - text, borders, patterns, etc.) you have in Designer "fits" within that measured length, and your board measures as wide as the one in Designer, you're good to go. Giving yourself 4" on each end, when you only need to give it 3.5" is a good thing.

Here's something else - if your virtual board is set at 96", and the real board is also 96", there is a chance that the machine will measure the board short. 96" is a long run, and if it's off by only 1/2", (or 1/4" as you say it did), the machine will ask you to scale the project - the machine believes that the real board is simply shorter than the virtual board, and the project HAS to be scaled. IMHO, you never want to allow the board to leave either roller during a carve - especially with a longer board. Too much bad stuff can happen.

If the machine measures the board's width, and finds that it's narrower that the dimensions you entered in Designer, the only choice the machine will give you is to load a new board - and it's maddening when that happens.

So, all that said, make your virtual board a bit smaller that the real board. if your real board is 96"x8.5", make the virtual board 95"x8.25" - this gives you some wiggle room if the machine's measurements are off. Draw your rectangle (I assume that's what you meant when you mentioned a "frame") on the virtual board, give it a measurement of, say, 88"x8", (do the math - in addition to the extra 1" on the length, and the extra .25" on the width, I've now got 3.5" on each end to assure that I'll stay under the rollers, and 1/4" on each edge, assuring that I won't cut into the brass roller (understand that you may get a warning when you go to upload the project to the card.....if the machine thinks that there is a chance that you will cut into the machine because it thinks yoiu're too close to the edges, but you know you aren't, tell the machine to ignore the potential problem). Make sure all elements of your project are inside that rectangle, upload the project on the card, put the card in the machine, select the project, tell the machine NOT to stay under the rollers (since you are convinced that it will, anyway), let it measure the board - it's quite likely that it will measure the board longer and wider than what your virtual board is - at that point it will ask you if you want to center on length - tell it yes, it will then ask you to load the respective bits, it will check board thickness, etc., and then it will carve your project exactly as you designed it.

Bottom line - although I think you did everything right, the machine measured you board .25" short, and that caused the project to be scaled.

Getting the light bulb to go off re board measurements, the 7" rule, board tracking (masking tape) is 99% of the battle.

[DickB]

On the project that you uploaded, the text and "frame" are 5 inches from either end, so it appears that part worked. Also, 5 inches on either side minus the 96 inch board size leaves 86 inches, which matches your project dimension for the text. If the machine did any scaling, it appears to have scaled only the height of the text (that is, the width of the board) and not the board length. That doesn't sound normal.

[cnsranch]

The machine measured the board short, Dick.

[DickB]

The machine measured the board short, Dick.
Read the third sentence of the first post and look at the project. What am I missing here?

[DickB]

Say the machine did measure 7" short. 7" on a 96" project is about 7%, and 7% of 6.25" letter height is less than half an inch. Something doesn't add up.

[cnsranch]

it measured the length correctly (within a quarter of an inch) on a 96 inch board.

Now I'm confused, Dick. I read the first post, then this one, and assumed it measured short. But now it appears that it measured long? Problem is, his virtual board is set to 96.25" in length as well.

I got your math about scaling, but I'm not sure the methodology is right, not sure it's wrong, either. All I do know is that when I've goofed, and allowed the machine to scale, the finished product is all messed up.

I think the heart of this particular problem is the length of the board - is it 96", or 96.25, and whatever it is, how did the machine measure to within .25" of its real length.

I still think we have a scaling problem, and it would be resolved by using the method I described below.

By the way, in looking at the mpc, I believe that it would carve much better if the text was outline, not raster, and a 60 degree v bit was selected - much cleaner, and a helluva lot shorter carve.

[carrothers]

Great responses and a tremendous amount of help. I have printed these off and posted over my computer so I will learn from this experience. Sounds like it's better to make your virtual board settings slightly smaller than the actual...leave 4 inches on either end and at least a half inch on the width and then select "not stay under the rollers".

I think Jerry is right, outline would be better to have selected "outline" and the "V" bit. I only selected the raster at .125 depth and it just did the outline of the letters (very similar to "outline" anyway.

I see where LHR has now released 3/16th carving bit which should make the carve a lot faster. I note that it requires v1.179 designer software and I just updated a couple of days ago and it said that 1.178 was the latest. I'll try again today to see if there is a newer version just posted. Again, thanks to everyone for their input. Hope to meet a lot of you at the conference in a couple of weeks.