How Accurate Would This .png Cut?

[brucegregory]

I don't own a CarveWright machine (yet), but would seriously consider doing so if I could verify how accurately the machine would cut .png files generated from the program SketchUp. I make clock gears using my own small CNC machine, but, now, I must make gears up to 14 inches in diameter. Since .dxf import is not yet possible, I'd like to see how a high resolution .png file might cut - just a simple outline, no sculpting at this stage is needed. Anyone care to give their opinion as to the viability of cutting something like this accurately?

http://www.learnblender.com/GearSegmentTest.png

Thanks,

Greg Smith

[Jeff_Birt]

Greg, it is hard to say just from the images you posted, what areas are left what is cut out, what type of material, etc. Things that the machine can't do are square inside corners and all the little nooks and crannies (the smallest bit currently in the library is a 1/16 striaght bit so at a minimum you will have a 1/32" radius.

There is one guy, Meat, who is using the machine to cut out parts to make molds for an airplane. He had posted a tutorial on doing this sort of thing a while back using Corel Draw and Designer. You can also download the trial version of Designer and try it out.

[brucegregory]

Birt:

This piece would be a straight cutout project to a depth of 1/4" and a 1/16" bit would be fine for the job. I'd like to be able to control which portions of the design are cut out first, (the outside should be last so the part won't jerk loose). This piece represents 1/12 section of a whole gear. The entire gear has a diameter of 14". The wood is maple. I don't care about having sharp inside corners, so that is not an issue. I do want to be able to control the scale to an accuracy of about 1/32". Another way for me to tackle a gear of this size would be to laminate the "blank" in pie sections - everything glued up in advance, then just center the piece in the machine and have it cut all of the inside pattern first, then the final outside shape last.

I'm really just trying to find out whether this would be the method used or should I try using the pattern as a trace for the "vector" tools built in to the drawing application that comes with the CarveWright system.

Thanks,

Greg Smith

[Jeff_Birt]

You cannot currently control cut order within a single project. You can seperate the inside and outside cuts into seperate projects cutting the inside project first. I WOULD NOT try to lay something like this out in the current version of Designer. You can layout something like this in Corel Draw or AutoCAD as a vecotr drawing, and fill the actual part (not cut out sections) with a solid color and save as a PNG or GIF as you did. CD will tell you the diminsions of the selction as you export it (or you can draw a box of known diminsion around your part). After you import the PNG into Designer and place it on your workpiece it WILL NOT be to scale. But you will know the size of the selection or outline box and can scale the object in Designer very easily. You wind up with a raster object in Designer this way, not a set of vectors. You can use the 'Outline' tool in Designer to create vector outlines of the object which you can use to make your cut out.

[brucegregory]

Jeff:

You can see that, in the version of the file I uploaded, that the teeth of the gear section are quite smooth, even though this is a rasterized version of the drawing. Using the method you describe, how close to this kind of smoothness, in the finished piece, would be possible with the current combination of CarveWright software and hardware?

I've downloaded and tried the demo version of the software to see how the "outline" function would work on an imported raster design. On screen, when zooming in on the "board", things look quite jagged around the edges. Even the vectors produced with the internal drawing tools look quite ragged when zoomed in upon. Is what I am seeing in the screen representation close to what I will get when the piece is cut with the CarveWright machine?

Thanks again,

Greg Smith

[Gman_Ind]

You will get smooth gear teeth if you could use the vector cutpath. I agree with Jeff the layout in designer would be really tough, to impossible to get gear quality accuracy.
Download the trial software, and see what it will do for you. The machine itself only does what it is told to do from the designer software. But it does a good job of making whatever you layout in designer. If you use the cutpath option it will automatically leave tabs keeping the cutouts attached so no need to worry about what order it is cut in. BTW the designer software does not actually show where the tabs are left but it does work well at holding the cutouts.

[meat]

I don't own a CarveWright machine (yet), but would seriously consider doing so if I could verify how accurately the machine would cut .png files generated from the program SketchUp. I make clock gears using my own small CNC machine, but, now, I must make gears up to 14 inches in diameter. Since .dxf import is not yet possible, I'd like to see how a high resolution .png file might cut - just a simple outline, no sculpting at this stage is needed. Anyone care to give their opinion as to the viability of cutting something like this accurately?

I've cut out a clock or two, and they even work!

The issues that I ran into - and that you will, too - is that it's impossible to create a concave corner. You're using a drillbit, so the concave corner will be rounded - no pointy pointy. Convex corners aren't an issue.

As far as accuracy...well, If you measure in ".00" numbers you'll be disappointed.

However, it's easy to make "accurate enough" parts. Especially for things like clocks, full-size airplanes, etc.

You will not be able to make a 14" diameter gear, though, unless you want to assemble parts. This is a limitation of the CW machine; the maximum carving width ... okay, the 'usable' maximum carving width (by usable, I mean 'not fighting the machine over resizing') is about 13.5"

You can draw in other programs - I use CorelDraw - but what you import needs to be black/white, and using a .png file is the best option. Don't use a .jpg file. And, when you import, you need to have the background black and the foreground white - no skinny lines. Using your example, what you import should look like this:

http://causticmessiah.com/art/gearexample.png

The higher the DPI, the better. The CW prints (okay, "carves") at 200 DPI, but if you attempt to match this number, you'll get all kinds of stairstepping and your clock will not work. I import ridiculously-high DPI images (600DPI) that are generally oversized as well. If I'm importing a 13.5" gear, the file will be a black and white, 27" 600DPI image. Then I just resize down.

I'm happy with my CW machines, they do what I want them to.

If you have any questions, please feel free to shoot me a PM.

Your pal,
Meat.

[BearlyRich]

Meat, You carved a clock on the CW??

If so, any chance of sharing that project? I would even pay for a working clock project. Fun and useful...

[meat]

Meat, You carved a clock on the CW??

If so, any chance of sharing that project? I would even pay for a working clock project. Fun and useful...
The clocks I've made have been based on mechanics that I don't have permission to post. However, I am working on a completely original wooden clock that's tailor-made for the CW machine. Besides ... Links to tutorials I've done and other posts I've made here have been edited or deleted by others, so I'm a bit hesitant to post anything other than simple text messages on this forum. For the sake of the members here, though, I'm willing to try posting a link again. We'll see how long it stays up before it's deleted or edited and I get another infraction.:rolleyes:

Westphale Clock Plans (http://www.pathcom.com/%7Eu1068740/downloads-westphale-clock.html)
Rabbit's Clocks (http://flashpages.prodigy.net/rpirtle/_upages/page2.html)
Gary's Clocks (http://www.pathcom.com/%7Eu1068740/downloads.html)
Wooden Clocks by Andre Napert (http://andre.napert.net/)
Wassell Skeleton Clock (http://home.comcast.net/%7Es.wassell/wood/clocks/tovarclock.htm)
ScrollSaw Magazine Wooden Clock Plans (http://www.wooden-clockworks.com/Magazine.html)

When I finish up the library of plans and tutorials I've made, I'll let you know.

Your pal,
Meat.

[Dan-Woodman]

Hey BearlyRich
You want some clocks , there are a lot of clocks on here. just do a search . Mine is at clock.mpc

[brucegregory]

Meat:

Using a high resolution .png, as you suggest, would one still have to sand the individual teeth, or would the finish be smooth enough? When the machine cuts the tooth part of the gear, does it know to cut around the whole perimeter, or is the whole gear cut using a back and forth motion like a printer?

Thanks,

Greg Smith

[meat]

Meat:

Using a high resolution .png, as you suggest, would one still have to sand the individual teeth, or would the finish be smooth enough? When the machine cuts the tooth part of the gear, does it know to cut around the whole perimeter, or is the whole gear cut using a back and forth motion like a printer?

I did have to finish sand a bit, but that may not have been necessary, as the edges are generally pretty smooth right out of the CW.

To cut out the parts, you just need to import and then set a cut path around the outside of the piece (hence the importing in b/w). The machine will cut the part out in vector mode (it will follow the line around the object), rather than in raster mode (cutting back and forth across the board like a printer).

Your pal,
Meat.

[rjustice]

Birt:

This piece would be a straight cutout project to a depth of 1/4" and a 1/16" bit would be fine for the job. I'd like to be able to control which portions of the design are cut out first, (the outside should be last so the part won't jerk loose). This piece represents 1/12 section of a whole gear. The entire gear has a diameter of 14". The wood is maple. I don't care about having sharp inside corners, so that is not an issue. I do want to be able to control the scale to an accuracy of about 1/32". Another way for me to tackle a gear of this size would be to laminate the "blank" in pie sections - everything glued up in advance, then just center the piece in the machine and have it cut all of the inside pattern first, then the final outside shape last.

I'm really just trying to find out whether this would be the method used or should I try using the pattern as a trace for the "vector" tools built in to the drawing application that comes with the CarveWright system.

Thanks,

Greg Smith

Greg,
If you do choose to go this route, the machine comes with 2 1/4 bit adapters. To go with the smaller tooling to do the perimeter cut, you will most likely need to go with a 1/8 adapter. I have them available, as well as the smaller endmills that you will require.

I havent listed them for sale on here, because i never thought about the need for them, but i do have .031, .046, .062, .078, .093, .125 square tip tools available as well to use for cut-outs. The radius that would be left on the concave radii in the corners would be half the diameter of the tools of course. I can get 1/4 depth cut outs on all of the above mentioned, and deeper on all of them except the .031.

If you or anyone else has a need for these, let me know. You can PM me.

Hope this can be of help to someone...

Ron

[meat]

Greg,
If you do choose to go this route, the machine comes with 2 1/4 bit adapters. To go with the smaller tooling to do the perimeter cut, you will most likely need to go with a 1/8 adapter. I have them available, as well as the smaller endmills that you will require.

I havent listed them for sale on here, because i never thought about the need for them, but i do have .031, .046, .062, .078, .093, .125 square tip tools available as well to use for cut-outs. The radius that would be left on the concave radii in the corners would be half the diameter of the tools of course. I can get 1/4 depth cut outs on all of the above mentioned, and deeper on all of them except the .031.

If you or anyone else has a need for these, let me know. You can PM me.

Hope this can be of help to someone...

Post pictures and pricing!

Your pal,
Meat.

[Jeff_Birt]

Anyone using non-standard bits keep in mind.....

Just remember that since most of these bit sizes are not currently set up in Designer, and we can't set up our own bits, your drawing will have to be adjusted. Also, you can not use the cutout feature if you have your stock mounted to a sled. IIRC, meat was using carpet tape to hold down his stock so there is no danger of a cut out part coming loose. In Corel you can do a countour and offset it by the diffrence in radius between the 'standard' cutting bit that you will be telling Designer that you are using and the one you are actually using.

[rjustice]

Jeff is right.. thank you for reminding everyone of this issue. You can achieve what you are looking for in vector cutting in most every case, but when raster carving, you are limited down to the 1/16 tool. I have substitued the 1/32 tool to experiment, and it works, just gives you a crisper looking detail, on small crevices. If you are trying to hold an accurate size, It will be off by 1/2 the difference of the tool size you substitute out.

Also, please refer to the recommended cut depths above, and remember that air blow on the tool is your friend.

I just started a new thread that shows the long reach tool series HERE (http://www.carvewright.com/forum3/showthread.php?t=3772)

Thanks again for everyone's interest!

Happy Carving,

Ron

[brucegregory]

Jeff & Meat:

Some of my questions show my ignorance of the machine and its software, but your answers, so far, are making me lean toward a future purchase of both. Currently I use a Taig desktop CNC milling machine, but I am limited to 4.75 inches of travel on the y axis, seriously limiting my ability to produce large work. Also, it does not do 3D carving which I think is just incredible, the way the CarveWright is able to accurately carve from a height map. I've been a 3D modeler for a long time, so just about anything I model can be brought into a program like Carrara and from there into the CarveWright software. The CG/3D community would be thrilled to know about the existence of such a low cost 3D "printing" solution.

So, if my understanding is now correct, both raster carving and vector cutting can be performed with a high resolution .png image as the source. Does the software produce vector cutting paths behind the scenes, or do they become available for editing at some point? From the way the "vectors" appear when magnified, if vectors are what I am seeing when I use the outline function, the on-screen view is not very clean looking. Maybe someone can clarify the vector cutting functions as they pertain to .png image imports.

Thank very much for your responses,

Greg Smith

[BearlyRich]

Meat, Thank you. Yes I would be seriously interested in a clock project for the CW. What could be better than carving a working mechanical device?

Dan, There's clocks here?? I thought I saw (and downloaded) just about every project available? Okay, I'll go searching.

Did the searching. A lot of clock faces and cases. Some people trying to do gears and a few clock projects. But noone yet has produced (here) a working wooden geared clock... I'll keep my hopes up...

[Charles M]

Greg,

I think that if you want accuracy you should check out the threads on making drawings into fonts to import. This way you can get the vectored lines in Designer without having to redraw them.

[brucegregory]

I did a search for "fonts" and "font conversion" on the forum search and found nothing. Can anyone post a link to the subject of converting regular "vector" artwork into fonts for use with the CarveWright system?

Thanks,

Greg Smith

[Gman_Ind]

I am glad you tried using the search feature, A tip is to click posts not threads in searching and I came up with this thread (http://carvewright.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3709&highlight=cad+fonts)(Click the hyperlink)
I searched for CAD conversion something I hope will become an integral part of the software, I can make a dead accurate CAD drawing way faster and easier than I can in designer, I have many years experience with CAD (Intergraph + raster) and would like to use what I already know and have. A DXF import utility would work very well for my pattern needs.

[brucegregory]

I looked at the thread referenced, about converting vector drawings to fonts, but really cannot follow everything since I don't own those particular programs. I have tried to save my vector file, (the source for the .png file that I posted in this thread), as a font file from within CorelDraw X3, but a dialog appeared stating that it had too many points.

Is there a reliable way to convert vector illustrations created in CorelDraw to a font file that the CarveWright software can read? Would anyone care to post a step-by-step illustration of the process? Since vector files cannot be directly imported, and, unless the internal conversion of a .png file of the type I posted to a really good cutting path is the reliable way to make a gear segment, the description of the process of converting to font format would probably be invaluable to everyone in this forum.

Thanks for all your comments and help,

Greg Smith

[Charles M]

Greg,

If you can email the file to me I will look at it to see why it has too many points. My guess is that it was created in a CAD program so all of the curves will have about a zillion points. A curve created in a vector drawing program like Corel can have as few as 3 points.

[mmartin55]

This is the closest thread I have found yet to convincing me I can cut 1/5 through 1/2 scale model airplane parts for my customers with the CarveWright.

I would like to use the smallest bit possible but don't want to tradoff unacceptable bit breakage and downtime for the resultant higher level of precision in the fine corner details. I know I will have to lengthen the depth of my notches for jigging parts together to accomodate bit diameter but the fewer or less "voids" in the joints that should be filled with epoxy or other adhesives the better from a joint strength standpoint whether real or perceived by the customers.

Is their someone that would be willing to take payment for converting one of my files on a trial basis and sending me the resultant part to compare with th drawings and my laser cut equivalents before I decide to purchase the CW?

And finally, is there someone that would be interested in converting all of my files for CW kit production from Illustrator to the required format and layout to cut with the machine?

Thanks!

[MichiganPatriot]

You cannot currently control cut order within a single project. You can seperate the inside and outside cuts into seperate projects cutting the inside project first. I WOULD NOT try to lay something like this out in the current version of Designer. You can layout something like this in Corel Draw or AutoCAD as a vecotr drawing, and fill the actual part (not cut out sections) with a solid color and save as a PNG or GIF as you did. CD will tell you the diminsions of the selction as you export it (or you can draw a box of known diminsion around your part). After you import the PNG into Designer and place it on your workpiece it WILL NOT be to scale. But you will know the size of the selection or outline box and can scale the object in Designer very easily. You wind up with a raster object in Designer this way, not a set of vectors. You can use the 'Outline' tool in Designer to create vector outlines of the object which you can use to make your cut out.

Regarding the above post: Like the original poster, I am seriously considering purchasing a CarveWright/Compucarve. I see that some functions are somewhat "translatable" from Corel, AutoCAD, etc. If I were to do a low-relief 3D drawing in another software like AutoCAD or Turbocad, is the 3D data translatable to the machine's software?

[DocWheeler]

MichiganPatriot,

There are some very talented folk here, but I would suggest that you get a trial version of the software (free) and play with it yourself. I think that this is the best way to get some answers, especially at your stage of this process.