How do you guys get your carvings looking so nice? My biggest problem is that the middle of the letters doesn’t get carved out, so there is a bit of material still inside. I am using the 1/8” engraving bit that I purchased from the v1 store. See the photo for an example.
Thanks!
The answer to carving out the bottom will depend on your CAM solution. For example in Fusion 360, I have to define the bit twice…once as a chamfer bit, and once as a taper bit with a small cutting area. Then I have to author two toolpaths, one to do the V cut, and one to cut out the middle. Some software will hollow out the middle automatically. The path of least resistance is to buy a larger diameter V bit.
If you’re using Estlcam, it looks like you are using the engrave tool. The carve tool will cut the muddle out too. If your max depth is deep enough to cut the whole thing, it will just go deeper. Otherwise, it will use your stepover percent to pocket out the middle.
In Estlcam I think if the bit is narrower than the max width of the carved image, or you set a max cutting depth that prevents the bit from carving the full width of the letters with one pass then you also have to widen the Maximum Carve Width setting so that the bit will run a pocket operation.
Thanks for the tips guys!
I am using the carving feature of Estlcam. I set the carving depth to 2mm. Is this too low to expect good results? What do you use?
5mm is pretty common for me, but adjust the max width a lot more to clear it out. Take a close look at the paths preview to make sure you did not miss anything. Do a couple small testers and you will figure it out pretty quick.
I normally use adobe illustrator. U type the the text, then add outline, then i click the same text and I negatively offset the outline such that I create an inner outline, I repeat that same process basing on the bit size and until the inside is filled with tracks.
I save as SVG.
I open estlcam, and import the drawing.and do the engraving
It works miracles
