Trying to Navigate SheetCam to Make a Sign and Failing

Hey All

Just got our table and plasma setup after ordering in March. I need to spend some time in the weeks ahead diving in deep on the CAD and CAM side of stuff to better learn how to navigate it and create the paths. Right now, I’m struggling with turning this SVG into an 18 inch tall file that I can run with FireControl. I’ve been in both 360 and SheetCam and I’m missing something major despite the tutorials. My sample cuts on other materials are showing a 50IPM rate and .5 penetration for clean cuts with THC with some of the Fireshare downloads.

Happy to send someone beer money if they can help me get this converted into something functional that gets us rolling and helps us get this sign made for our youth nonprofit.

KRB Calendar Logo Full Color Tom Breaks demo-01

Inkscape is a better option for working with files like this. Do you want a single layer cutout or a multi layer sign? To get something that looks exactly like that, you will have to do a multi-layer sign.

Downloading Inkscape now–thanks for the suggestion on that. Shooting for a single layer I believe, just a single layer of material. Will need to tab the inside of the letters like in the E’s so they remain connected to the finished project.

I do not know of how this can be done in one layer…

This is how I would do this in one layer.

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That looks perfect. So, 1, how can I get it prepped to hit the table, and 2, where can I venmo you for beer?

No beer necessary. I’m happy to help with anything to get more kids on bikes. I build bicycle frames as a hobby.

What material are you cutting it out of. I can post it on Fireshare for you to download.

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16 gauge cold rolled steel

and Fireshare would be awesome. Thank you so much.

I put it on Fireshare with my settings for 16ga at 30 amps. I tried to upload the SVG, but it didn’t load properly. The .tap file looks OK.

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nice teamwork guys…nice to see

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I would love to see a screenshotted walkthrough of how you accomplish that and inkscape.

I’m interested how your workflow is in inkscape.

Looks great by the way! good choices in how you silhouetted it and used line cut in different places.

Thanks. I realized afterward that I should have broken the line that goes almost all the way across the piece.

Most of my process in Inkscape is node editing. It’s not as fast as the method of putting little blocks over things and cutting them out, but it yields a cleaner result.

In the node editor, there is a tool bar at the top left that has a bunch of tools for deleting and adding line segments between nodes. You can only delete a segment between two nodes, but you can add a node anywhere you want by double clicking on the line. Hold shift and select both nodes and then you can delete the segment between them. Then you can join those open ends to any other open end with the “join selected nodes” or “add a segment between selected nodes” tools.

I’ll try to get some screen shots of the process today.

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That’d be really cool I did use inkscape for a while there’s a lot about it I enjoyed.

But I ended up adopting fusion 360 for 99% of my workflow now.

It could be a pretty interesting topic on here a few of us took one project and did a walk-through in a bunch of different options in CAD.

And then through our two different options of CAM

It would be kind of like the Langmuir CAD cam Rosetta Stone.

I’d be willing to do a full walkthrough of this through fusion 360.

Maybe we should start a new topic.

Be cool if we can find someone to do the same thing in infinity designer?

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Cool idea!

@brownfox would be the one to do this in Affinity Designer…

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@TomWS @ds690 @brownfox

Definitely this could be pretty interesting and fun.

So what if we start in new topic.

Call it “langmuir CAD CAM Rosetta Stone” or what have you.

Maybe we could agree upon a different drawing that has some uniform SVG elements to it.
Basically a lot of elements that the regular plasma table user would run into designing 2D parts.

Collaboration on here to see how to use a bunch of these different programs to the same end.

Then run the same thing through the CAM of fusion 360 and the CAM of sheet cam.

Seems good use of time.

When I’ve done screenshot style walkthroughs on here before I’ve used 3D paint through windows with a lot of success .very quick.

Having all the walkthroughs in a comparable format would be super useful.

I made some recordings of editing a script font in Inkscape and then post processing in Sheetcam, but I can’t upload mp4 files here. Screenshots of the process would not effectively show how it is done.

There are a lot of steps to get from this.

To this.

Either Zip the file or upload it to YouTube and post the link.

Cleaning up script fonts is a pretty common issue & question so it’d be good if other folks could see what you did. Thanks for going through the effort.

I uploaded the video to my Flickr account. I recorded it with the gaming feature in Windows, which doesn’t show the drop down menus, so you can’t see what I’m clicking on in those. The only one in the Inkscape video is the Path and Object to Path and maybe an undo for a screwup. You also can’t see really clearly, but I am holding shift and clicking to select two nodes before deleting the line between them. For any other nodes, I am just clicking on them to select and then hitting delete to delete the node.

The Sheetcam video is mostly drop down menus and popup windows, which don’t show on the video, so its not really helpful. I’ll try to make another one with a different recording app. and maybe make another Inkscape video with narration.

You should be able to view the video here:
https://flic.kr/p/2mi4Yq9