I’m following @jro_cambria’s lead, trying to do something similar, in my case, engraving name tags.
I’m trying to carve some ham radio name tags in these blanks:
However, I am taking a slightly different route.
I want to use the same SVG with a laser using a color key to engrave anodized aluminum blanks, and to engrave plastic on my mill. I’m using black for raster engraving and blue for vector engraving; no red because I’m not cutting. I chose a Gorton font because it is designed to engrave with an end mill, but I did tweak the kerning:
I converted the font objects to paths, imported the SVG into Kiri:Moto, and used “Merge Object Meshes”, then added a Pocket operation and selected all the faces. (Some of the letters had more than one face.) Then I chose an end mill that fits, and it traced the letters nicely.
To engrave, I plan to run it on my mill, bumping the Z on the mill down about 0.1mm at a time until I get a clean cut, since I don’t know how thick the white layer is.
Other fonts with tighter corners would need a V bit, though.
Might be a little while before I actually have the time to go carve these, but I thought I’d share how I got to a toolpath that looks sane for what I’m trying to do.
I looked at your workspace. the contour option is for surfacing organic surfaces curved in the Z plane. by default it extends cuts to the bounds of the selection which can interfere with the part at sharp Z boundaries. so not a bug in this case. disabling contour is the right fix.
