is this the right machine for me?

[larryguenther]

Hi,

I'm looking at buying a Carvewright machine. Right now the goal is to get line drawings from Adobe Illustrator (on a Mac) into bas-relief drawings on a board. How straight forward is this? I use Illustrator quite a bit so if I can keep using that program and convert the files to something the CW machine or software can eat, I'd be a lot happier. Am I smarter to get some sort of CAD program? If so, which one have people had good (or bad) experiences with?

[oldjoe]

Just my thoughts but as far as I know there are no cad programs that will create a file that the Designer Software will accept. I wish it would I use Cadkey 98 at home ( I know old tech) but its expensive to get a new one. I know there allot of members using Coral Draw I think that is what it is called.
Hope this is somewhat of a help.

[jlovchik]

Larry,
Yes Illustrator designs will work fine. You will have to export or use save for web to export the drawings as jpegs, then they import into designer just fine. I am the Art Director here at LHR and I use Illustrator everyday. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

[yatrgatr]

Save your money and mind just my opinion. this thing is way to troublesome. one problem after the next. I had to send my machine back twice so far. I dont trust it. it ate my scanner probe, now i am afraid to use that again. another $300 gone. just look in the trouble shooting pages of this forum to get just a little idea of all the trouble people are having. some people say this machine is great, even with all the trouble. I think there crazy to accept a $2000. plus machine with all the problems and say its great. I am dissapointed to say the least.

[liquidguitars]

is this the right machine for me?

I have had some good luck working with the unit and inport my Cad files all the time, just render the DFX or OBJ to grayscale in a any 3D program and your good to go.. guys at LHR are helpfull and 100% into the CNC.
LG

[dominulus]

Larry,

If you want clean centerline cuts, convert your Illustrator vector file into a font glyph, using Sigmaker 3: http://www.fontlab.com/font-utility/sigmaker/

In Carvewright's Designer program, simply type in the glyph (your black-and-white illustration) as you would any font letter, but make certain that it is preceeded by Space/Return/Space, and followed by Space/Return/Space.

Also, most here would recommend that you save any grayscale images in .png format, as it avoids the artifacts associated with .jpg compression.

d

[rpringle]

YATGATR,

I think you are right, this machine is not for everyone.
It has a steep learning curve, and new machines often have problems.
But try to find any machine close to it's capability for less than $10,000.00.

You are probably better off with a hammer and saw.

Russ