Do not assume that I know anything. Everything I have searched for seems to assume I know what to do when they tell me to do it. But not how.
When I go to carve, I get the message that there is nothing to carve. Here is what I did, I moved a wheel shape from the apple thingy into my work. I selected carve around the ourside. My stock is brich plywood, 4.5 in by 4.5 inch and is .2 inches thick. I saved the file by right clicking on the image in the lower left hand corner and saved it to my PC.
What step did I miss? I have reviewed the tutorial several times and it just says to save the file, but never how or where to save the file. One place says to export the file, but export is not offered under Project. Only import and that does not work.
When Easel says that there is nothing to carve it is due to one of two things typically:
- There are actually no shapes to carve.
- The bit that you have selected is too large to carve any of the areas of the design.
I suspect it is number two. Try making the design larger or use a smaller size bit if you wish to carve a small design. You can also use a v-bit if you wish to do that.
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Brandon R. Parker
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After 1.5 years I still struggle with getting a file into Easel, for a couple of reasons.
First if you have a drawing (circle thingy) in the left window and a representation of what the carve will look like in your right window, Easel automatically saves every change you make, not sure why you are trying to save the file, it is done.
So if you have a circle thingy on the left you should have something on the right, at minimum you should have a rectangle that represents the material you are going to carve. The top corner of the right hand window should show a rectangle and a materialdescription, first job is to click on that rectangle and select the material from a list, scroll down the list then click on birch plywood (on my screen it always starts with birch plywood). Once you have selected the material in the same window enter the size of your wood. you need to click enter to get each dimension into Easel. Now go over to the left window and select a shape from the top left corner, click on it, & you will get a row of the shapes right beside the one you selected, click on that and it will magically appear in the left window, if you selected a square it will show up as a 1" rectangle that you can manipulate, you can drag it to what ever size fits your work and on the right hand side of the left window under the “shape” button you can enter its position, and size, and beside that there is a cut button, in that pop up you can tell Easel what you want to do with the shape, it defaults to clear out a pocket and gives you a slider to for depth of cut… Now go ovet to the right window and beside the material button is a bit size pick a bit from the list or just select the default.
You should now have an image in the center of the right window with a depiction of your carve.
Now spend a few hours playing around with those windows and selections get kinda comfy with things there, then do a simple carve.
If I have walked you through something you already know how to do I apologize, but if this is new to you then know that each of us has struggled through the starting curve.
I spent two weeks looking for the carve button that everyone was telling me about, only because I did not know I had to install the driver, installed the driver and I had the carve button. Now with my new machine, I have to download the gcode into my machines controller, we all gotta learn.
Hope this helps
