Machsupport Forum

Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: Jackal on December 22, 2011, 03:49:12 PM

Title: Milling letters/design on arched face surface
Post by: Jackal on December 22, 2011, 03:49:12 PM
I have done a little bit of lettering/engraving on my mill. There are some motorcycle guys wanting me to engrave their gas caps & belt buckles.

How do you  engrave on an arched radius like this?

I have an old  Master cam program and can get the arch but the letters are giving me fits.

Thanks,
Jackal :)
Title: Re: Milling letters/design on arched face surface
Post by: BR549 on December 22, 2011, 04:05:07 PM
DeskEngrave (;-) and its free.

(;-) TP
Title: Re: Milling letters/design on arched face surface
Post by: RICH on December 22, 2011, 04:23:01 PM
I need to do a similar task so will be interesting to see what folks post.
I was going to place the text on the 3D surface and restrict the cut depth so it only cut the letters ....I think that will work
but have yet to try it. That eliminates the need for say using an A axis and wrapping it like with Wrapper.
Know nothing about Master cam though.

RICH
Title: Re: Milling letters/design on arched face surface
Post by: RICH on December 22, 2011, 04:25:21 PM
DeskEngrave will place text on an arc but the text won't be laying  flat on the contoured surface.....??
RICH
Title: Re: Milling letters/design on arched face surface
Post by: BR549 on December 22, 2011, 05:08:09 PM
AH you are doing domed engraving that is a different cat. Take the Dxf file from Deskengrave then apply it to a 3d dome surface and then ortho rectify it for the dome.

Easy to say not so easy to do.

(;-) TP
Title: Re: Milling letters/design on arched face surface
Post by: RICH on December 22, 2011, 05:17:08 PM
What Autocad 3D allows you to do is imprint ( in this case it would be text and my text would be "drawn" ) onto a selected suface and then you can extrude the text for depth
/ height. I haven't tried in Cambam such that the text would be selected as the 3D object and machining applied to it.

Just one of those little learning curves one needs to go through when doing stuff. No wonder my model gun will be years in the making......... ;)

RICH
Title: Re: Milling letters/design on arched face surface
Post by: ger21 on December 22, 2011, 06:45:40 PM
What Autocad 3D allows you to do is imprint ( in this case it would be text and my text would be "drawn" ) onto a selected surface

Learn something new every day. I found out that you need ACAD 2011 or higher to do this (time to upgrade). I'll have to do some research on this, as I'm not sure if you can actually use the projected text to create toolpaths. Depends on what type of entities are created.

Another option (cheaper than AutoCAD, but not cheap, is Vectrics Aspire, which can project toolpaths onto surfaces. In either case, you'll need a 3D model of the object you're engraving on.
Title: Re: Milling letters/design on arched face surface
Post by: alenz on December 22, 2011, 07:37:20 PM
A while back I wanted to engrave a shift pattern on a shift knob for my son and wrote up a little app to convert the flat pattern X-Y g-code to a spherical pattern. That’s the only time I used it. It may or may not do what you want, but you are welcome to give it a try.
Needless to say proceed with caution and at your own risk.
Al Lenz

'INSTRUCTIONS: Enter dia of sphere and burr (ball end mill).
'Touch off burr on top surface of sphere.
'Cut will be 1/2 burr dia, (enter zero to manually set depth).
'Pattern must be centered (X0, Y0) on sphere centerline
'Z dimensions will be adjusted for curvature of sphere
'Limit is +/- 45 deg of sphere upper surface
'Break long straight lines into short segments
Title: Re: Milling letters/design on arched face surface
Post by: RICH on December 22, 2011, 07:52:39 PM
Jerry,
ACAD 2007 has the 3D inprint command. Not sure if you can just use typed text and that's why i said drawn text ( text from  arcs and lines).

RICH
Title: Re: Milling letters/design on arched face surface
Post by: ger21 on December 22, 2011, 08:20:22 PM
No, you can't use text, but you can explode text into polylines and imprint that. The command I was referring to is PROJECTGEOMETRY, which was new in 2011. I'll need to plat around with it.
http://www.cadforum.cz/cadforum_en/how-to-project-geometry-to-any-3d-surface-tip7297
Title: Re: Milling letters/design on arched face surface
Post by: jonny quest on December 22, 2011, 10:10:25 PM
http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,20380.0.html
Title: Re: Milling letters/design on arched face surface
Post by: Jackal on December 23, 2011, 12:56:38 AM
Thanks for all of the info, guys.

Johnny quest,

That is cool & simple. The spring loaded tool follows the contour and still gives a good result in just 2 planes. Any stretch of the  letters/shape is unnoticed.

alenz,

I will have to try that little application.

Some of these items will work with the spring loaded tool, but some of the guys want some deep milling.

Fins on the side of the engine parts with their name some where in them. ::)

Thanks again and keep the ideas coming,

Happy Holidays,

JAckal
Title: Re: Milling letters/design on arched face surface
Post by: budman68 on December 23, 2011, 06:52:30 AM
Possibly this may be of help to you?

http://paulrowntree.weebly.com/warpdriver.html

This is a program written by Paul Rowntree who is a member of the Vectric forum.

Definitely worth a look at-

Hope that helps-
Dave 
Title: Re: Milling letters/design on arched face surface
Post by: RICH on December 23, 2011, 09:01:46 AM
Thanks Dave,
Another thing to try out......never ends  ;)

RICH
Title: Re: Milling letters/design on arched face surface
Post by: Jackal on December 23, 2011, 11:24:18 AM
Dave,

Thanks for the link. If I can get that to work with my Mastercam/Autocad, I'll gladly donate more than $20 to help him out.

Looks great.


JAckal :)
Title: Re: Milling letters/design on arched face surface
Post by: budman68 on December 23, 2011, 12:48:45 PM
Glad to be of help, fellas-  :)

Hope it works out for you-

Dave