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I have Acad V14 and I know enough to do just basic drawings.
I used to know more during my working years but have forgotten a lot since I
retire.



I would like to make some signs with my CNC router as a
hobby but don’t know how to draw the body of the sign if I want it to have a
mixture of straight border and curves. I have no problem making the text.



So I want to make the outline of the sign which will include
straight lines and curves about 1/2" thick and it will stick up from the
face of the sign lets say 1/2". Do I use a polyline, Trace, Spline or
what? And how about the place where I will write the letters; how do I
incorporate that along with the border.



When I will finish a sign, I will export the drawing to a
dxf file and then the CNC software will take over



I would appreciate any guidance

Since you will be cutting this signs with a CNC router doesn't everything, including your text, have to be reduced to lines or can it handle working with polylines?

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Thank you John

 

Never thought about it but you are right, the CNC software
prefers polylines. I used to make my shapes with the Line command and the CNC
could not read the dxf and then switched to PL and all went fine. I haven’t tried
to cut any text yet so I don’t know the results with text.

 

Much appreciate your time

Your text will have to be polylines as well then.  First though you'll have to explode it.  It's been a while since I used release 14.  Do you have Express Tools?

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I guess release 14 must be an obsolete version for you guys
LOL, I know its old but it does the trick for me nicely and it’s free, a gift
when I retired from my company.

 

No I don’t have Express Tools, I just have the menus and
mainly I work by typing the commands at the command line.

 

I have made about 10 samples of a simple sign in an effort
to see what I can do. They all turn nicely as a drawing in Acad but I have some
issues when I try to open the dxf with the CNC.

 

The sample sign is a 4”x 8” rectangle. I make 3 layers
(Base, Border, Letters).

 

The base is just a simple rectangle made with the Line
command and converted to PL afterwards. This base has no thickness (don’t know
if this is ok or not)

 

The border is made with the Line command too. Then I fillet
the corners, add a donut at the top, trim the donut to suite and then convert
all to PL. Then I use a 1/2" Offset to make a thick like border and then
convert all to PL.

 

I discovered that if I use the Region & Extrude commands
to make the border a solid, the CNC only sees a single line. If I just give a
height to each border line (Modify Command, Thickness) then the CNC sees the
border properly and that is fine.

 

I also try to explode the text with the Explode command but the
Command says “I was not able to be exploded” So I have an issue with the
letters on how to give them a “Height”

 

Sorry for the lengthy reply John, just try to let you know
what I have done so you can see my steps and see if I do it right or not.

 

Thank you

[QUOTE=John Connor]Your text will have to be polylines as well then.  First though you'll have to explode it.  It's been a while since I used release 14.  Do you have Express Tools?[/QUOTE]I'm pretty sure TXTEXP was available in r14 (was called Bonus Tools back then).

Yep...Bonus Tools.  I guess I forgot that they changed the name.

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As I said I don’t have the Bonus Tools and when I type
TXTEXP I get “Unknown Command”



However under the Draw Menu I have the item Text and this
opens Multiline Text and Single Line Text. The Single Line Text is the DTEXT
and that is what I used. The Multiline Text is the MTEXT and when I click on it
I also get “Unknown Command”.



We should not forget that my Acad version is from an office
environment where the IT personnel used to install in our laptops what was
needed according to our work. As a PM I was not making drawings but only needed
to be able to open the drawings. Perhaps that is the reason the Bonus Tools was
not installed and I also know that Rendering is not installed either.



Anyway perhaps we can forget about the text because the CNC
software has basic text abilities and that is sufficient for me at this stage.
From what I described above, is that the way you would go to make the frame of
a sign? Perhaps you may have ways to make the process more efficient / faster?

 Thanks again

The only way I can think of to make the process faster and more efficient would be to write a custom lisp routine to handle the creation of a sign.

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Much appreciate your help John



I haven’t made any signs yet and I only want to do a few as
a hobby so writing a lisp routine, although I don’t know how complicated this
task is, does not justify the effort. Since I asked for help on this forum, I
have practice my Acad skills a lot and I see a big improvement which is
encouraging. So instead of searching the Web for dxf files I would rather try
to make my own.



There is a lot to learn and time consuming between the CNC
software and Acad and that’s ok since as a retired man I have lots of time. But
sometimes it’s also frustrating and then you know that it’s time to ask for
help.



Thanks again John