Open Source V-Carving

Back in the house after a long day in the shop. Looking at this again.

Definitely the anti-virus (Avast!) was causing the delay. I set "f-engrave-138.exe" on Drive F as an "Exclusion" and BAM! Opens just as fast as previous versions.

Sorry to bore you all with this, but captured here for posterity! LOL!

Have a great weekend and thanks again, Scorch, for a great feat in programming.

I had to bump the version again (now at V1.39) to fix a v-carving bug that I introduced in version 1.36.

@all

Thats a great tool :) - first time I used it one month ago.
Does someone have photos of practical application in the metalworking. - I've only found examples from wood processing

thanks

@all

Thats a great tool :) - first time I used it one month ago.
Does someone have photos of practical application in the metalworking. - I've only found examples from wood processing

thanks

@scorch

Thanks for this marvelous gem! Found it a few days ago and have been playing with it all the time. So far I tried a Harley Davidson logo and the Mayan Calendar and both came out great.

Now my wife wants me to make a door sign, but with letters standing out. Some dark wood as the base with letters cut from blond wood and glued on to it. I found the option to cut away from around the letters but they are still flat on top. Is there a way to make them pointy, something like a Z-axis mirror?

Thanks again,
Wilhelm

Attachment 241906

In order to make the tops of the letters all sharp you would need to start with a bitmap image with the letters represented as thin lines (like normal text). You would import the bitmap image and use the "Flip normals" option to cut the outside of the image. I assume this is the setting you found to cut the outside of the letters.

You will probably need to adjust the Bitmap Settings to accurately import an image made of thin lines.

This will result in only a very small flat on the top of your characters. (You could set your z-zero position slightly lower than the surface of your stock material to remove the small flat on the characters.)

Good luck

I released F-Engrave V1.40. There were a few bug fixes and a change to the default coordinate system. The new default coordinate system makes putting multiple designs together easier because the origin stays in the lower left corner of the original image (not the lower left corner of the tool path).

The most significant change for V1.40 is the speed. You should notice a significant decrease in the time it takes to perform the v-carve calculations. Especially if you use the windows executable distribution (or an old version of Python with Psyco support)

There is more information on the changes on the Scorch Works Blog or you can just download the latest version from the F-Engrave web page and try it.

Good Luck

Cool Scorch, thanks a lot and keep up the good work!

I posted a new version of F-Engrave (V1.45) to the F-Engrave web page.

Changes:
- Added multipass cutting to the v-carve options in the V-Carve Settings
- Removed "Inside Corner Angle" and "Outside Corner Angle" options from v-carve settings


These are the multipass options:
Finish Pass Stock is the amount of material that will be removed on the last pass
Max Depth per Pass is the maximum depth of material that can be removed in one cut.


The latest version is available here: F-Engrave

I just started using F-Engrave with my ShapeOko, it's a great program, thanks for all the hard work. I wanted to let you know that Shapeoko gives me an error on G91.1 and G64 commands. I'm using a the GRBL board with Grbl Panel as my g-code sender.

You can eliminate the G91.1 by turning off arc fitting in F-Engrave General Settings. You can get rid of the G64 in the G Code Header setting.

Then you can save your default settings for following sessions by saving a config.ngc file. (just change the settings as you want them to be, then save a .ngc file named "config.ngc" in the default save location.

Thanks. I made those changes.

I have a feature request for F-Engrave - somewhere display the height and width of the area to be engraved. Right now, I don't know how many inches my text till take up.

The size of the engraving is displayed in the status bar at the bottom of the main window.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by scorch

The size of the engraving is displayed in the status bar at the bottom of the main window.

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Thanks. I didn't notice it.

Scorch I want to thank for your hard work and generosity for making available and continuing to improve f-engrave and your other software.

I made this bench top for my sister using f-engrave. She is the evil one Thanks again

Attachment 271184

@jschmitt, Thanks, I love to see what people are making.

Here is some additional information about running F-Engrave output on a Shapeoko (using GRBL). You may get this error when trying to send g-code to the Shapeoko:

“Error while starting file stream: Command #3 too long: (55 > 50) ‘(Settings used in f-engrave when this file was created)’ ”

This error is generated because the #3 value set in GRBL is 50 and it need to be increased to allow longer g-code lines to be processed. Setting the #3 value in GRBL to 80 should be sufficient to accommodate the g-code generated by F-Engrave. I don't know the details of how to change this setting in GRBL (I don't have a Shapeoko) but I had an F-Engrave user point out that this was a problem for them when initially running F-Engrave on the Shapeoko.

There is a more complete post about F-Engrave with GRBL here: F-Engrave with GRBL Blog Post
I recently edited the linked post to include the additional information provided above.

I noticed a v-carving I did yesterday cut the tool path twice. What setting am I missing?

Looks like the new multipass cutting option (in V-Carve settings) was always active in V1.45. I put out a new version V1.46. It should be fixed now: F-Engrave

The multipass options allows users to limit the amount of materiel removed in each pass then perform a light cut for th finish pass. This is especially useful for people with light duty machines like the Shapeoko.

Thanks for pointing out the problem.