Logo machining

[CNCMike]

Hi Guys,

I am researching how to machine logo's and I am having some trouble. I searched this site which helped, but I am still getting poor results.

 

I found a link to a logo site in one of the threads on the forum. I chose a random logo, ran it through Wintopo and then opened it in MCX2. The resulting tool path was was awful (I used engrave). The curves were rough and parts of the logo were not accurate.

 

Can anyone give me any advice. I am a total newbie when it comes to logos (this was my first try)! A good description, a link to directions or a video....

 

I just took a logo off of CADCAM's FTP site which looks better, so I am going to try again and see if I get better results.

 

Thanks for the help, Mike

[Philcott]

Hi Mike,

 

The trouble with engraving logos is they usually are NOT vector drawings. This means they are not lines and arcs but are a series of dots. When this gets converted to a vector drawing there is usually a lot of cleaning up to do if you want smooth arcs and straight lines.

Once the drawing is converted I will normally create splines over the drawing (on a different level) I then convert the splines to arcs and do clean-up as needed.

This takes time but if you are like most machinists I know it's the only way to make the drawing clean enough that you will be happy with it.

 

Good luck.

 

Phil

[Todd Tracey from Fastech]

The source of the drawing is also critical. If it's a web type drawing, they take them down to about 75dpi or so to make them load faster. You need a clean high rez drawing not a copy of a fax, etc. In the Mastercam Ras2vec converter, we are tracking the edges and if they aren't crisp, the import can suck

[CNCMike]

Hi Phil,

That makes sense because one of my attempts at engraving a logo gave me a bunch of dots in the shape of the logo.

 

The logo I got from the FTP site worked fine (DXF file). I opened the .DXF file in MCX2. I then tried engrave and contour, the contour was the better of the two.

 

Why do some logo's work fine out of the box, while others need a bunch or rework? Do you think the logo from the FTP site was reworked in some way?

 

Thanks, Mike

[edmBosto]

As Phil states I also get better results if I change the splines to arcs. I also like to end the logo with a .001 finish 2D contour Tpath and overlap by just a little in the lead in/out tab.

I have been using the minimum arc feed feature for this lately with good results. You can see a smoother flow on the radii in backplot changing to arcs.

[Philcott]

quote:

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Why do some logo's work fine out of the box, while others need a bunch or rework? Do you think the logo from the FTP site was reworked in some way?

---

There is no real "out of the box" logo. It all depends how the logo was created. If I was designing a logo that I know I would be engraving later on I would create it using lines and arcs. If I was a graphic artist creating a flashy logo for a big name company I would use a graphic arts program with all kinds of fancy effects and colours to get the most impact.

 

The logo from the FTP was probably on there because someone asked if another forum member would run it through a raster to vector conversion and maybe a different member cleaned it up.

 

Phil

[Redfire427]

If you can start out with an eps file that is output from some of the typical graphic arts software which is typically where most people create logos to begin with, you are off to a great start as Mastercam can open an eps file. If you have to create geometry from a bmp or jpeg file, the bigger the image the better. If the font/picture has any shading done on it, well, you're screwed. The import result will be terrible. I have used this piece of software ( see link ) and once you understand the settings to use, the results are not too bad. It still requires re-work, but overall it's not too bad.

 

http://raster-vector.com/

[CNCMike]

Well I downloaded some logos from this site www.logotypes.ru and they worked fine in MCX2. It seems that our company logo just needs to be in the correct format and then it shouldn't be to much trouble from there.

 

A few more questions, how do you go about resizing a logo in MC? Should this be done before it is brought into MC? I also have not tried to place a logo on an exsisting part. Is there a technique for locating a logo in a specific position?

 

Mike

[Philcott]

It is fine to scale them after bringing it into Mastercam. To scale the logo go to Xform, Xform scale, select the entities, fill in the info needed (closely watch your scaling reference point) and click done. You will notice you can change values up until the point you select the check mark to finish.

 

As for moving the logo you can use Xform, Xform drag.

 

Phil