Vfontz Info:

[Rick]

Anybody been using Vfontz, I can’t seem to generate a font higher than 1 inch. I’ve been trying to make 3 inch lettering, but when I hit ‘create toolpath’ it doesn’t make a complete path, some lines are red & some are black. When I alter the ‘tool diameter’ setting to 90 to 120 degrees the toolpath works, but the code comes out really weird and doesn’t follow the depth I put in. If someone is using Vfontz could you post the settings for a 3" letter that works for you. I’ve found another program from FastCam called FontGEN, it converts to DXF and works well with
Turbocad but it doesn’t do the Typesetter affect. http://www.fastcamusa.com/ Thanks Rick

[imserv@imsrv.com]

Rick,

Why don't you email Fred Smith at IMService and
ask him. It is his program and he knows it best.
Him email address is:
imserv@imsrv.com (mailto:imserv@imsrv.com)

Bruce Clark
bwclark@centurytel.net (mailto:bwclark@centurytel.net)

[Rick]

Bruce, I did contact Fred about this and did what he said, but still can't make any sense from it. I've tried it on different computers and get the same affect, I was hoping someone here was using Vfontz and if they have the same problems! Thanks Rick

[davidallen]

when using a V-cutter, you can't constrain both depth and width of cut. if you want a certain depth, you must accept the width of cut produced by the cutter and vise versa.

da

[imserv@imsrv.com]

Vfontz has 2 methods that can be used to cut letters. Vfontz works ONLY with Vector.

1) Using only the V tip to cut to full depth (whatever depth is required) to generate the outlines of the letters. For a 3 inch high letter this may extremely deep, and could pierce all the way through thin material. To get this tool path set the Maximum Depth of cut to a very large number. The resulting tool paths will only go as deep at the cutter angle requires.

2) By specifying a maximum depth of cut (note this is NOT maximum depth per pass). By specifying a maximum depth of cut you can carve a very large letter in thin material and not get any piercing due to theoretical depths required for the tool angle. This method does however require that you do some additional work in Vector. There may be a large center section that is not cut by Vfontz because it is flat. This area is defined in Vfontz & passed to Vector when the geometry is pasted in. It is on a layer called Center Region and located at Z=0. In order to cut this area, you need to use either the pocketing routines in Vector, or the Cross hatch. Instructions to do this are in the Vfontz help file.

Smoothness depends on appearance. Set your font & look at the letters, type some new ones to get the screen to update. If they look good, set the number lower till they look facety or like a series of lines instead or arcs, then set it one number higher. Usually this number is not higher than 3 or 4, maybe 10 at the most.

Z up set at .1 to .25, depending on the flatness of your material.

Filter depends on how the tool path looks and how accurate you want the output to be. For 3 inch high letters, depending on the font, a filter value of 10-15 is probably OK.

If you still have problems I suggest that you call us directly to save us both a lot of time.

[Rick]

Fred, You just resolved my problem with your quote ( generate the outlines of the letters) this is what I’ve been getting when ever I made a font higher than 1 inch. For some reason I figured
your Vfontz would produce a font like the Typesetter at any height! Thank’s Rick

[imserv@imsrv.com]

Vfontz does produce a font like Typesetter at any height. As a matter of fact Mark Dreiling, the author of the Tesarna Typesetter is also the author of our math routines(Also Vcarvz, which has now been released). The problem is that as you get larger and larger letters, you also have to have larger and larger cutters, and they have to cut deeper & deeper. Since many people want to engrave large letters in thin material, we developed the second cutting strategy to enable for instance a 3 inch letter to be cut in 1/4 plexiglass, and limit the depth to 1/8 inch, and at the same time exactly preserve the outline of the letters, including the sharp & square corners.

You can also cut this large letter using just a 1/4 or 1/8 diameter, 60 degree cutter.

[imserv@imsrv.com]

One last comment about this. Someone pointed out that just maybe I was assuming that you knew how to use some basic things in Vector & you might at least have looked at all the menu selections available. Therefore:

If your question is "Can I cut a 3 inch high letter with a V cutter & JUST cut down the center?" The answer is also yes, but you will have to generate the toolpath in Vfontz at 1 inch high & then use the independent axis scaling in Vector to "STRETCH" the tool path from 1 inch to 3 inches high. Since this makes such a distortion of the original font, I personally don't it, I assume that others don't too. My Bad.

[gerald_d]

Fred, Vfontz is being discussed over in another thread (http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/messages/315/1112.html?1035980540#POST7031). Now you have a later version (http://www.imsrv.com/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?tpc=14&post=156#POST156) of Vfontz that directly exports dxf files. Would it be feasible to use the ShopBot's dxf file conversion utility to import the dxf from Vfontz and thus enable the cutting of V-bit signs for $200? (without using Vector or Parts Wizard).