James contacted us a few days ago and I sent him a link to a PEP5 file to download that he can test with a 60 degree V-bit.
Itās a PicEngrave Pro 5 gcode file for spindle engraving an image. This one.
@picengravertoo - What type of bit is that file expecting and what size will the carved area be? I would like to try it also.
No I wasnāt/havenāt. As I am trying to get just āoneā software to work I havenāt addressed the pic engrave info as yet.
PicEngrave Pro 5 is optimizes for using a V-bit and it was only a test file for James to try. He did not give me the information I asked for like the max RPMās of his spindle, so I guessed at a feedrate. Itās set at 80IPM with a 20% Feed Rate Change (variable feedrate) of 20%. In the shallowest cutting areas, it will run at 80IPM and in the deepest cutting areas, it will run at 64IPM.
Itās a different photo engraving strategy then what you did with PVC. The step over is only .005".
I read you run your machine at around 30IPM, so If you want me to slow down the feedrate for you, I can regenerate the gcode and make it any size you want and post another link for the download. Just give me the details.
If you open the gcode file, the comments will give you all the relevant settings that was used in PEP5 when it was generated.
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If you could drop the max feed rate to 60 ipm that should be fine for a shallow cut.
Also if you could change the size to fit within a 5x5 inch square that would be great since I could use a piece of scrap poplar I have.
Thank you for your help, I am curious to see how PicEngrave performs.
Ok, here it is. http://www.picengrave.com/downloads/miscdownloads/X-Carve%20Test.zip
I did not include the Feed Rate Change this time, but did have it relieve the outside border first. The setting information is in the comments. Let us know how it goes and if you need any settings changed, I can generate it again.
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Thanks, I will run it tonight.
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Well. I tried to run the gcode you sent. I loaded it into UGS 2.0 and it appeared to be loading but it took about 5 minutes (most files load in under three seconds). Then when it looked like it was done, UGS was not displaying the number of lines or an estimated run time. I tried to open the visualizer but it would not display anything.
So I opened the gcode in my text editor to see what was going on. The file you sent has almost a million lines of gocde ( 938,362). So I think that really exceeded what UGS could handle. I even increased the amount of virtual memory on my computer to 12 gig to see if that would make any difference. It did not.
Just to be sure everything else on my system was working, I opened another gocde file with about 50,000 lines and it opened fine and I could use it to carve. (The visualizer in UGS worked fine)
Then to be sure this was not a problem with the new version of UGS I went back to the old 1.0.7 version and it behaved the same.
So just to see if the file would run at all I raised the bit about an inch above the work and sent the file. It traced a border around the outside of the picture area twice, then it made a few diagonal passes from lower right to upper left with no z movement then from the upper right to the lower left, still with no z movement. Then it moved to the center of the area and stopped.
So it looks like the gcode file size was just to much for UGS.
Hmm, I was wondering if UGS could run that file.
I can make the engraving smaller, or use a larger step over/step ahead but there will be loss detail in the engraving.
We run larger files then that on a daily bases with PicSender. It takes about a minute to load them on our Acer Aspire One Win XP home laptop, but our Win 8.1 PC loads them in about 5 seconds.
I hope this was sent by someone else???
What do you mean?
the million line gcode, I didnāt send that I donāt think?
No you did not, that was a new test I was doing to see what kind of results I could get from the PicEngrave software.
I think you should stick with PhotoVcarve for now. Have you purchased PhotoVcarve or are you still working with the demo version?
No, I am still trying to work with the āfreeā trial version of vcarve photo for now. I took a look at this pic engrave software and decided that I would stick with vcarve for now. I still have to get vcarve photo to work, hoping the 30 degree bits will give me better results when they arrive. Zach Caplin is helping me and he is in contact with vectric trying to see if they can resolve the problem. Still donāt know if it is a software problem or a āmeā problem yet but will keep trying. If I can get satisfactory results from vcarve photo trial version I will pull the plug and buy the software package at that time.
James,
I wish you the best with your endeavors.
Allan,
thanks for at least trying to test that PEP5 gcode file for James.
No problem, I will take a look at the PicSender software.
Hereās a new one, tonight I was able to type the text string I wanted in Inkscape and import it into easel. When I tried to run the toolpath, easel locked up and would/could not continue. It just keep crashing. Anyone else with a similar problem?
Latest video w/info.