I recently acquired a used waterjet cutter and have a couple of questions:
1) The machine is controlled by a PC. If the hard drive would fail, I'd be dead in the water (sorry for the pun!). I can't seem to be able to make a copy of the software, so is there any other way to back it up? It is a Windows XP PC.
2) I draw the parts with Autocad LT and then save them as a dxf. My question here is that I would like to cut out letters and numbers and was wondering if there is a program that I could import the text into Autocad that would support the dxf format. TIA for all replies.

RO

I'd use Norton Ghost to copy the whole hard drive- it'll make an exact duplicate of your hard drive to another one. I'm sure there are other utilities to do this as others may point out.

What program are you using to generate your code from the dxf file? I tried for ages to get AutoCad files imported into Dolphin (specificaly with regard to engraving text) and was tearing my hair out until I found the "engrave" button on Dolphin *looks sheepish* it does the engraving itsef, dead easy.

Let us know what you're using to generate the code, I'm sure there will be a facility for engraving without having to generate the text using Acad.

For doing text, you can use Autocads "explode" command to reduce the text into lines and arcs prior to saving as DXF.

Carl.

Search the Zone - there are many, many posts about engraving text - with and without and Acad.

Exploding the text within Acad will work and I did it this way for a long, long time but the result is not usually acceptable without a lot of tweaking. SHX texts work better than True Type for the 'Explode" technique, by the way.

Scott

What brand of Waterjet is it?

Is it possible to build water-jet machine by hobby works?

Regards,
Samak

It is a Calypso Hammerhead(2005). I tried exploding a couple of different fonts of text but got the same message that it did not find anything. Someone told me there was a program that would trace fonts and could be transfered to a dxf file. Anyone?

RO

you can define a plotter in autocad to generate dxb files (binary dxf) that can be imported as line segments - not fonts

I recently acquired a used waterjet cutter and have a couple of questions:
1) The machine is controlled by a PC. If the hard drive would fail, I'd be dead in the water (sorry for the pun!). I can't seem to be able to make a copy of the software, so is there any other way to back it up? It is a Windows XP PC.
2) I draw the parts with Autocad LT and then save them as a dxf. My question here is that I would like to cut out letters and numbers and was wondering if there is a program that I could import the text into Autocad that would support the dxf format. TIA for all replies.

RO

1) You can get a computer technician to make a "clone" of the hard drive onto a separate hard drive which you can then keep stored away somewhere. The clone is an identical copy of every single file and setting on the hard drive.

2) I used to use the freeware Elefont(you can google it) to make DXF font drawings, but it requires quite a bit of tweaking. First of all, you have to go into the program settings when you're typing your text and eliminate all 3D curvatures and just have it be bare-bones text. Then once you export the text as DXF, you have to basically trace the perimiter of the text with the Arc command in AutoCAD because the arcs do not transfer as arcs... but rather as straight lines, so you see the font but it does not have smooth curves. You have to draw those out yourself.

Be sure to erase the imported text from Elefont before you re-export the finished drawing to your controller. You also want to purge any unused layers. Some software has trouble with all the different layers that are sent along with these types of programs.

Robert,

Does your machine use G-code to drive it?

There is a free program by www.deskam.com called Desk Engrave that generates G code for TT fonts. It works very well.

Regards,
Jack C.

PS: Whose software is controlling the machine??

JCC