Engraving on an arc

[YV600]

The HAAS VF3 will allow me to engrave characters in a line with its given Gcode. Is it possible to manipulate it to engrave on an arc? For the life of me I can not figure it out.

[Al_The_Man]

There is a free program out there that converts to Gcode called DeskEngrave.
Different Character fonts in a line or an arc.
Al.

[psychomill]

Most guys at my shop just G68 the code I believe.... I'll have to ask the Haas cell on monday

[CNCgr]

Originally Posted by YV600 The HAAS VF3 will allow me to engrave characters in a line with its given Gcode. Is it possible to manipulate it to engrave on an arc? For the life of me I can not figure it out.

Short answer, no. That's if you mean something easy like GXXX (TEXT) (ARC DIMS & POSITION).

You can use an external program as Al_The_Man said or CAM.

G68 won't help much, you'd have to go to each character's position, G68 and repeat for every letter .

Or you could build a template. I'm just starting to look into these but there seems to be potential

Nikolas

[Gandalf]

It can be done. You will have to figure out the start position and angle of each letter first and program them individually. I have a lot of similar arc engraving to do and created a template for it. I called it arcengraving52. It will give me all the spaces for a 3mm high letter on a 52 mm outside ring. First time I used it it took me some time to create it in Cad and write all the locations up. Once it was done I just blanked all the Characters in brackets to (). Now when this is coming up all I do is insert the characters and go.

[psychomill]

G68 won't help much, you'd have to go to each character's position, G68 and repeat for every letter .

You have to go to each characters "position" anyway... otherwise it wouldn't engrave where "you want it"... Unless you're talking about position of rotation. In which case.... No, you don't need to move to that point. You only need to tell the machine the point of rotation on the command line.

And, I only suggested G68 for reasons of being simple for small amounts of engraving. Things like serializing and what not. If you have a "dialog" of stuff to engrave, then I'd look into loading an engraving macro sub that can rotate with a command (easier to use and less hand typing). Or, use a CAD system to post code....

[Gandalf]

G68 is not neccesary for engraving since the engraving string includes an I value which will give you the rotation of the character. You just have to find the placement point for each letter.

This is the normal string:
G47 P0 X-34. Y-39. I0 J4. R1. Z-0.05 F100. E25. (DR3318-0046-DT T3)


If you want to do an arc you have to figure out the X,Y and I values on Cad. Once you got those all you have to do replace the last Character.
G47 P0 X-34. Y-39. I10. J4. R1. Z-0.05 F100. E25. (D)
G47 P0 X-34.5 Y-40.5 I5. R1. Z-0.05 F100. E25. (R)
G47 P0 X-35. Y-41. I0 R1. Z-0.05 F100. E25. (3)
and so on. Note(X,Y and I values are just guessed values in this example)
I will post a properly working program soon on
http://cadcamtrainer.com/forums under the Haas section

[psychomill]

What Gandalf posted is where I was getting at. I don't program Haas much anymore so I couldn't remember if there was a format for it...

[mikenaturalice]

i use mastercam, it lets you engrave on an arc (you specify radius), and also the font styles. very cool

[HelicopterJohn]

I could be mistaken but in MC9 you can only do horizontal and vertical lettering with a stick (single pass) font. If you select an outline font it will allow you to put it on an arc.

If anyone know how to put an stick (single pass) font on an arc using the Mastercam lettering option I would appreciate that information.

Maybe MC10 has that feature.

Thanks,

John

[mikenaturalice]

i am using MCX mr2, sorry about any confusion

[Shotout]

Originally Posted by HelicopterJohn I could be mistaken but in MC9 you can only do horizontal and vertical lettering with a stick (single pass) font. If you select an outline font it will allow you to put it on an arc. If anyone know how to put an stick (single pass) font on an arc using the Mastercam lettering option I would appreciate that information. Maybe MC10 has that feature. Thanks, John

It will do it. I had to do this for two different styles of master locks with the companies 3 initials. They wanted them large enough to be seen and deep enough not to easily grind off. What I did was draw the profile of the locks, one was the standard with the stacked plates the other curved brass. After I had that done and oriented as I wanted it I then created the letters I wanted, using a simple font mind you to minimize the geometery. I had it on level 2 and oriented it so that it was centered in all dimensions. On level one I created a surface for the lock face and then selected all text and projected it onto the surface. I then set my parameters with a 2mm endmill and no cutter comp and chained my geometery. They turned out real nice. The funniest part of this was that it was suppose to prevent anyone from stealing our locks, we got maybe half of them back to the shop after the shutdown they worked was over. I guess they where a little too nice.