I am about to work on a project. i know exactly what I want to do, but the execution is beyond me. I need to make a circle that is about 36" OD and about 33" ID. it can fit on my X-Carve, but, for waste reasons, i’d like to use a solid board and cut it in pieces and join them together to form the circle vs. laying a piece of plywood down and making the full circle. I drew everything up in AutoCAD to get the measurements i need. But I cannot seem to redraw it in Easel. I tried bringing in the file I made and it ended up being all choppy.
Before anyone asks, I have not done anything as far as program to program to file format to file format conversion. I know, I’m being a little vague with the project. Just not sure how to explain it all. Think of a semi-circle with a dovetail joint on each piece to make a full circle. But with Easel, I cannot seem to get the angles and whatnot right. I’m sure it’s just me looking at the wrong thing or getting frustrated too quickly.
So, any advice would help in this little side project.
I was hoping to use a piece of walnut I have and cut it into 20 equal semi circles. Then cut a bunch of bowties out of hard maple to connect them.
Are you using LT? I’m assuming your not doing this in Fusion? You can always save as a DXF and import into Fusion, extrude it, and create the CAM file. That can be imported into easel.
I’m using AutoCAD 2014. When I open Fusion, I don’t see a way to import a DXF file. a lot of others, but no DXF option. Am I looking in the wrong area?
I’m not in front of my CPU, but I believe it’s on the toolbar, about the second or third icon from the right. I’ll check here in a few hours if you don’t find it. It’s definitely not in the main drop down menu.
Can you upload the dxf or dwg file? I’ll put it in VCarve and spit out an SVG.
The whole DWG file or make a new one of what just the X-Carve will be cutting?
I have notes and full layout drawing on there as well.
Just what you want the X-Carve to cut.
Roulette wheel border.dwg (32.9 KB)
would this work?
I still want to know how to do it on my own though. I’m sure it’s just me, but i cannot seem to find a good balance of communication between different programs. And i’m sort of only learning while i have breaks at work. When i get home, it’s all chaos or i have to finish other projects, no real time to learn new programs from the ground up.
Ok. I just googled an image of the interface. Look under insert.
If I remember, you’ll have to pick a surface to insert it into. Than press ok. Then you can extrude or press/pull.
Done and done. Surface found, inserted DXF. how does that get converted into an SVG? does the item need to be extruded first?
Thanks, Robert. That’ll get me started on the project.
Still need to figure this stuff out. I was able to put that same DXF into Fusion and i extruded it. What would the next step be?
I don’t believe that Fusion can output as an SVG.
I think that you would have to have all of your material and everything set up in Fusion and then export G-Code to run in Easel.
Roberts right. In fusion, you need to Use the CAM function. That involves creating a setup and then selecting how it’s going to be milled. That can be post processed and imported into easel. SVGing it might be quicker. The power of Fusion is great, but it takes a bit of learning. Once you figure a process, it all goes really quick though.
Yeah, I’m messing with it now and it’s starting to get frustrating. How should I go about making the SVG if time to learn Fusion is an issue?
wow that tool path in fusion is much different that Easel. that will take some learning.
I used VCarve to do it, but you should be able to do it in inkscape, which is a free program.
Drats, cant download it here at work, firewall issues.
