Hi,
Last weekend I did my first project with my new X-Carve. Obviously, I have a steep learning curve to overcome. I downloaded an image outline of the state of Texas and imported it into Easel. Since it was a cutout I went all the way through the material. Yes I did cut into the waste board. LOL a thickness meter is the next purchase.
One thing I noticed is that there were three passes the machine made. Since it’s a cutout obviously one pass would be enough along the line before it goes down the next step. So the question is, how do I reduce such image to only one pass to save time? I double clicked the line in Easel, but there are so many points that it would take quite some time to do it manually.
Below a picture. The boots didn’t come out right because after breaking two bits by accident I only had one size left. LOL As I learned, finer details require smaller bits. New ones are on the way though.
Hope I got the terminology somewhat right. Thank you in advance.
Stefan
It seems that imported shapes often have duplicate vectors. Zoom in as much as possible and deleted extra vectors.
Source image have a line.
Some conversions may draw an outline of the line creating two paths.
As @MarkA.Bachman mentioned, zooming in and deleting them may be one solution.
Regarding zeroing height for wood carves:
As most wood isnt truly uniform in thickness, nor true to its nominal value zeroing off the waste board is more precise.
Say you have a work piece that is about 1/2" in thickness.
Zero the bit off the waste board then retract it 1/2" plus a smidge more. Remember this value (1/2"+whatever).
Now, in the design enviroment (Easel etc) set stock thickness to this value.
This means that the first pass may be a little light but the last depth will be exact waste board level.
That is a great suggestion. I’d also been thinking about putting a 1/4" piece under the work piece. I suppose that would eliminate the problem altogether. Thank you very much for your suggestion.