[nosplinters]

Hi all,

I just purchased a Taig CNC mill with Mach3. I also bought the 2L floating engraving bit.

I've been in the laser engraving business for a while now and decided it was time to expand into the rotary engraving market; however, I'm finding it quite difficult to do repetitive engraving on a variety of products.

For example, I attempted to engrave a Swiss Army knife last night and couldn't really figure out the best way to position the knife in order to do repetitive engraving.

How do you all go about this (create jigs and setup a work offset)?

The other thing I'm confused about is if it's possible to place my bit at the center of the product and be able to center the text at that point. Is this something that's even possible with a specific engraving software package?

An example would be:

START:
-----------------------

BIT HERE
____________________|

RESULT:
-----------------------

BILL NYE
____________________|

Thanks!
-Ed

[metalworkz]

Hi Ed,
I think with items like this Swiss Army knife it will probably be easiest to fabricate a jig that traps the knife and is clamped to the table. If the engraving is drawn at the CAD stage with the datum at the edges of the knife it should be easy to zero the X and Y at this corner of the jig and the Z on the surface with Mach3, regenerate the toolpath, and then the engraving should turn out like the drawing and the jig can be removed and reclamped for repeat work.
In Mach3 click the Config tab, then Fixtures, and then save the fixture offset in the list. The fixture offset can then be used at a later time for use with this job/fixture. If you prefer to center the datum on the part it is just a matter of setting the X and Y zeros to the same place although I think it will be harder to find the center of the part on the table than to find the index corner of the jig. I'm sure there are other ways and perhaps better ways to do this and hopefully you will get other replies with alternatives for you to choose