Trying to figure out how to cut letters

[dovrosenberg]

I am new to CNC plasma cutting. I built a home grown CNC cutter from JD Garage plans. I am trying to figure out how to cut letters. I have attached screen shots of the result and of the tool paths from Fusion (i have the cheap guy license). My settings were 40amp, 2530 mm/min per the Primeweld Cut 60 cut chart. Right now I only have a 1.1 mm nozzle. I should be getting a smaller nozzle this week. My kerf is .045 mm.

Questions:
1. What is the best font size/width for cutting with a plasma cutter? I used a "stencil font".
2. I was trying to just cut the letters the width of the kerf to avoid the inner parts falling thru - should I be doing something different?

Linking tab

Heights tab

Closed chains or open chains?

Tool paths

Screen shot of Fusion manufacture screen

3.4 mm aluminum

[adbuch]

What size are the letters you cut in your sample? What material and material thickness are you cutting? You need to stencil the letter "B" to keep the center from falling out when cut.
David

[dovrosenberg]

the whole shape is 125 mm. The B is 20mm tall. The cut out part of the letters is 3.9mm wide. I would like to just have a single pass the width of the kerf for the cut on the letters versus doing an outline. Is there a way to do that?

[acourtjester]

the term you are looking for is "bridged" not stencil, this means to have a small bridge that connects the inside of the letters to the outside. That way you have a way the inside will not fall out. I think if you look on this site in the past there are post about what and how this is done. This is done by breaking each letter with anther shape to make it bridged. I use Inkscape to do this but other software can be used too. In this screen shot you can a normal letter B with a thin bar shape moved over it and the difference action to remove the thin bar remove from the B. This is done with any closed letter you wan to use.

bridged.JPG (5.46 KiB) Viewed 3179 times

bridged.JPG (5.46 KiB) Viewed 3179 times

[adbuch]

the whole shape is 125 mm. The B is 20mm tall. The cut out part of the letters is 3.9mm wide. I would like to just have a single pass the width of the kerf for the cut on the letters versus doing an outline. Is there a way to do that?

If that is aluminum you are practicing with, you might have better luck with steel.

David

[plasmanewbie]

the whole shape is 125 mm. The B is 20mm tall. The cut out part of the letters is 3.9mm wide. I would like to just have a single pass the width of the kerf for the cut on the letters versus doing an outline. Is there a way to do that?

To do a single pass the width of the kerf you want a single line or stick font.

Here a couple topics I found that may get you what you need.

viewtopic.php?t=34385
https://plasmaspider.com/viewtopic.php?t=20620
viewtopic.php?t=34956

[ben de lappe]

This is the font style plasmanewbie described.

Font_Union_E.svg

(41.55 KiB) Downloaded 27 times

Font_Union_E.svg

(41.55 KiB) Downloaded 27 times

Font_Union_E.dxf

(221 Bytes) Downloaded 22 times

Font_Union_E.dxf

(221 Bytes) Downloaded 22 times

Font_Union_E.cdr

(132.2 KiB) Downloaded 23 times

Font_Union_E.cdr

(132.2 KiB) Downloaded 23 times

[adbuch]

This is the font style plasmanewbie described.

Font_Union_E.svg
Font_Union_E.dxf
Font_Union_E.cdr
Font_Union_E.png

Ben - where can we download to install this font?
Thanks,
David

[acourtjester]

David it is a file with all letters upper and lower case with numbers, as shown in Ben's post. you will need to open it in Inkscape and do an un-group to separate each and copy and paste to form what you want. It is also upside down.

[adbuch]

David it is a file with all letters upper and lower case with numbers, as shown in Ben's post. you will need to open it in Inkscape and do an un-group to separate each and copy and paste to form what you want. It is also upside down.
union letters.JPG

Tom - I know that. I was asking for the original font file so I could install it into my Windows fonts folder. It would be a real pain to have to copy and paste each individual letter. Maybe ok for a one time project.

David

[acourtjester]

I agree but I was only commenting on the file posted, if Ben had a .ttf file he would have posted it or said where to download it. A shame that single line fonts are few and far between, some projects look better with them.

[adbuch]

Here is a site to download a stick font. It's not as smooth as Ben's example, but it might be worth taking a look at. I installed it and it does work.
David

http://www.ncplot.com/stickfont/stickfont.htm

[adbuch]

Here is a sample of a stenciled stick font from Design Edge. It is a dxf, so lots of nodes - but still works fine.
David

STICK FONT STENCILED.dxf

(261.98 KiB) Downloaded 31 times

STICK FONT STENCILED.dxf

(261.98 KiB) Downloaded 31 times

[adbuch]

the whole shape is 125 mm. The B is 20mm tall. The cut out part of the letters is 3.9mm wide. I would like to just have a single pass the width of the kerf for the cut on the letters versus doing an outline. Is there a way to do that?

Try this one.
David

Bear.pcm

(6.52 KiB) Downloaded 27 times

Bear.pcm

(6.52 KiB) Downloaded 27 times

Bear.dxf

(22.91 KiB) Downloaded 14 times

Bear.dxf

(22.91 KiB) Downloaded 14 times

Bear.svg

(90.49 KiB) Downloaded 11 times

Bear.svg

(90.49 KiB) Downloaded 11 times

[TJS]

Here is a sample of a stenciled stick font from Design Edge. It is a dxf, so lots of nodes - but still works fine.
David

STICK FONT STENCILED.dxf image.jpg

STICK FONT STENCILED.dxf

David,
Have you tried test cuts on these letters. I used some stick font a while back and the letter "T" comes to mind when I was cutting the stick font I was using. The torch comes back over an existing cut no matter where I started the cut. The only way to remedy this was to put a bridge between the horizontal and vertical lines. I am sure there are other letters here that would do the same thing. Cool stuff here everybody.
T.J.

[adbuch]

Hi TJ - no, I haven't cut any of them lately. You asked about the letter "T". Here is what Design Edge shows. This should cut exactly as shown in the cut previews.

David

[adbuch]

If you use the stick fonts imported to Inkscape, then you would be correct.

[TJS]

Yes it was the cambam stick font. I will try what you posted.
Thanks.

[ben de lappe]

Ben - where can we download to install this font?
Thanks,
David

I don't have an answer to your question as this font comes from my TM CAD module. It contains quite a few stick style fonts under "Pro Fonts-Engraving". I chose this one for it's simplicity and only wanted to give the OP something with which to get started.

[ben de lappe]

David it is a file with all letters upper and lower case with numbers, as shown in Ben's post. you will need to open it in Inkscape and do an un-group to separate each and copy and paste to form what you want. It is also upside down.
union letters.JPG

I have no idea why the .svg is upside down, but I'm glad you got a good laugh.

[adbuch]

Thanks Ben! I do have TMCad, but not the advanced engraving. I did check all the fonts I have in my TMCad and none are of the stick style.

David

[acourtjester]

Some thing I just found if you have Lightburn software you can import single line fonts into it (.SHX fonts) and then configure what you want and save it in the DXF file format. This can be loaded into SheetCam for create a G-code.
It talks about this in the last part of this video lots of other great info in the video too.

[plasmanewbie]

Good video, thanks Tom. SHX fonts have been used in Autocad for a very long time, it's an old format for fonts and symbols. I have a bunch of single line fonts that came with my cnc mill in ttf which will be friendly with pretty much any software however I am not sure that they can be shared here. I see no license info or anything.

[tnbndr]

I do my design in Autocad, which is not the greatest for doing fonts/letters, even with the Express Tools add on.
What I have found to work best is a program called Stencil Fonts, by Cad Kas software. See link below. They have a slew of conversion softwares, etc.
I don't use the "stencil" feature, you can bypass, but I save my text as a .dxf and then in Autocad I bridge the letters my self.
I also use a program called Font Viewer to preview my text in every font that is loaded on my computer. When I find the font I like I go to Stencil Fonts to create the text and save as a .dxf file. Import the dxf into cad program and go from there.






https://www.cadkas.de/downengcad4font2dxf.php
http://fontviewer.net/

[adbuch]

Tom - I didn't watch the video, but did a search for .shx single line fonts and came up with this.

https://forum.lightburnsoftware.com/t/s ... tion/25298

I downloaded them all into a new folder and installed into LightBurn. Then just type the text you need and save as svg or dxf for import to Inkscape, etc.

David