Hi All. I friend gave me a copy of Artcam 2008 and a USB thing to make it work. Got it installed and went through the process of converting a jpeg into a 3D carving. When I went to save the toolpaths to test the process, I couldn’t find a suitable gcode association to use. X-Carve isn’t listed and when I tried the generic gcode selection, it doesn’t work with Universal Gcode Sender.
Does anyone have a solution so I can use Artcam 2008 with my X-Carve? I would really like to turn photo’s into carvings and I can’t afford Aspire. I have V-Carve that I purchased with my X-Carve but not sure if I can use V-Carve to solve my problem.
Any help would be appreciated, Thanks
generic mach3 post processor should work. What exactly is not working with UGS?
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What problem do you see when you use the generic gcode post processor?
Lol. I had exactly the same thought at the same time
Great minds think alike Allen 
maybe it’s just a file extension thing?
That is very likely. There are also some issues that Grbl has with arc conversion
UGC would read the file but the bit would only move back and forth along the x axis about a 1/4 inch. Will try the Mach3. Apparently Artcam 2008 has a limited selection of output choices. Thanks for the responses.
If you post your gcode here, it’ll be easier to help.
That sounds like a problem with an mm post processor when you needed inches.
You could try one of these.
https://discuss.inventables.com/t/artcam-post-processors-for-x-carve/33540
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Save it as an STL out of artcam and open it in Vcarve
Was unable to get Artcam to recognize these .con files. Get an error message “configurable post processor failed to open…” Using Mach3gb-arcs(inch)ATC and that seems to work. Still having issues with the carve but think that’s due to my lack of understanding with Artcam.
Cheers, Mitch
Not an option that I can find. Only default file type listed at the “save as” window.
Most likely these post processors use features not available in the 2008 revision of Artcam.
Be carefull using the ATC processor. It may try to change bits if you have more than one tool in a toolpath.
Thanks, i usually save one toolpath per tool, learned that lesson the hard way.
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Hi Mitchell,
Depending on what you mean by ‘converting a jpeg into a 3D carving’, it is possible you can already do this in V-Carve? The Trace Bitmap command (Trace Bitmap - VCarve Pro V9.0 User Manual) will create vector lines from an image and works perfectly for drawings, line art, logos etc.
If you need want to produce a photograph-like effect we also have a technique which uses a V-bit tool in contrasting material in a similar way to the old newspaper printing process. If you only want this technique you can buy a separate bespoke app - PhotoVCarve (PhotoVCarve Free Trial | Vectric) - which is much cheaper than upgrading to Aspire.
I hope this helps.
Edward
PS. Full disclosure: I work at Vectric!
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