Silver Bullet Cutters Forum

Exploring etching some words onto plastic sheet.

Inkscape so far seems to be the goto favourite, and so yesterday started playing with the eggbot extension that fills with the hatch ... random lines shooting off in all directions! had a drink, then kinda got that figured that out ... tightened up the lines by using a large font, filling, changing the stroke thickness afterward to much thinner lines, then scaling the text down afterward .... and then I read this:

Another drawback of this extension is that the fills it generates are not smooth, continuous tool paths. Rather the fills are many independent line segments, each segment requiring pen up and pen down operations in order to be drawn. While the fills may look pleasant on a computer display, they are not optimal for the task of plotting a color filled region with a pen plotter.

from here: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4943

Made me concerned about the machine going kaput a few months of production, doing the etching this way. Or at least wearing out the engraving tool more quickly. I know the SB is made to be "run all day long", but why stress it unnecessarily. I am going to be cutting out some simple shapes, no problem, and etching some words onto each of them ... which i think is where the heavy lifting is going to be ( and perhaps be time consuming.)

SO. I started playing with Live Path Effects in Inkscape, Hatch fill rough. There are supposed to be some nodes floating around in "the middle" there that control bend and scale/direction, but playing with a large letter "L" (object to path, live path effects), I only see the path, or cusp nodes. I like the idea of far fewer tool up/downs creating the cross hatch etch all day long. Anybody?

... should I explore Illustrator instead for this? I have CS5, never used, but understand Image Trace may do this ?? Before I dive in there blindly, perhaps someone has explored this territory before and can sketch a map?!!

don't worry. no more drinks. yet.

LOL on the drinking - many of us have been there or at least thought about it!!

The engraving tool is a diamond tip so there is little need to worry about that wearing out. I know that there are many on here who engrave on a regular basis using the hatchfill. There is also something similar in CorelDraw. So I would assume there is in Illustrator as well.

I think much of this is what you are most comfortable doing. Find what works for you and gives you the best results, but don't worry about the longevity of the engraving tip!

I wasn't satisfied with the fill in Illustrator, I think Inkscape does a way better job. And I am a dedicated AI user, I know someone on the UK Forum did a tutorial on it for Illustrator, but I thought it was a big hassle and took forever. I don't know about Corel Draw, I only use it for my Rhinestone files.

In Corel Draw you use the post script fill...it just gives you more options than cross-hatching, but it performs the same way as Inkscape in tool up/down

Playing in Inkscape land, with Live Path still. Like the idea of just a couple of continuous lines creating the hatch, but getting them to work inside the text path so far is as much fun as pushing string. blech. Percy Verance.

LOLOL - like your style!!

I would rather have the drink just sayin'

He may be there already Lisa - can only push a string for so long!!!

I am SO with you!!!

Ha-harrrrrrr!!! Got it figured. Now it IS time for a drink. or two....


That is....got the hatch rough effect working. Reconstructing each letter this way is a bit painstaking, but it works!!! ... and got much faster once figured out just how the letter is made up of paths - now the printer (yes yes, cutter, and not a sip of a drink ... yet) ... the cutter etches each letter like one of those seismographs when Tokyo or San Fran gets hit - the engraving tool stays down for the most part since the hatch is a single line for each letter element.

Some trial and error, spurred on by some hatch inkscape tutorials online:


http://verysimpledesigns.com/vectors/in ... hatch.html

and

http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL ... tches.html



Letters like p, g, e, d, o etc etc ... the ones with "holes" in them, were sending the hatch line in all the wrong places. So, eg. for P, the straight stroke has to be separated from the curve part, and each then made a self contained space for the hatch line to stay inside. Lots of ungrouping, working, regrouping of the paths to bring the elements of each letter back together and look seamless, mostly. The open curvey ends of p, d, e, g have to be closed with a straight line which shows up as a stroke, but the etching will make that go away, so no harm no foul.

Etched a few words into polyethylene plastic, started with v800 f100, and even got down to v800 f3 with a clean etch still visible.


OK. I am a Brit, but still only one drink. Earned my stripes in college days many moons ago, seen enough spinning rooms. OK. maybe I'll have two!!

didn't. just one.

LOLOL - love your sense of humor and information!!! Sounds like you figured it out in a way that works for you. Great job!

Bravo on only one drink too! (and I SOOOOO agree with you on the college days - yikes!!!)

Great info. Thanks for sharing your discoveries. Glad it was only a "one drink" learning experience!

FYI update on my little project. So, I'm back into Illustrator, but with a whole different approach. Rather than having to switch between etching and cutting ... or buying a second machine to dedicate one for each, I'm printing lettering onto the plastic sheets first and cutting the shapes afterward. The etch look is certainly nice ..... but even for my first small run of 500 pieces x 4 shapes on each, it started to get daunting. I have a scal question about registration marks for print/cut but will post with it's own shiny new topic header.

Wow - to me 500 pieces and 4 shapes on each is not a small run!! Engraving takes a LONG time.......it is beautiful, but it is time intensive!

Yes, I only got as far as testing the concept. I was so far in the woods and proud of figuring out the how. My wife watched from a distance and suggested "maybe you should get these printed instead?". After my knee jerk resistance .... well, here I am. Not all plastics are made to be printed, but I found a shop that has an ink that works. As far as the plastic etching concept went, we found a lighter force had the nicest look. Anybody need a diamond? It would make an unusual ring for my wife. A thank you token for the hours of etching saved!!

LOL - love the sense of humor.

I wouldn't give it up so quickly - who knows. You may come up with other projects you may like to etch - like mirrors, glass, metal - I can hear those wheels turning already!!