ADA Braille

[Joe Pelonio]

Anyone doing ADA signs on the laser? I've been buying the grade 2 braille from a guy on clear strips and sticking on to the signs that I make here
(below are for a ferry). Just talked to a guy that says he has figured out how to do the braille with the laser, using rastor to make the holes. One day when we both have time he's willing to show me, just have to get a braille translator that can be imported into Corel.

http://members.aol.com/bisjoe/ada.gif

[Keith Outten]

Joe,

You can order the clear acrylic braile dots from McMaster Carr (Part Number 1383 K41) and engrave a hole for them. One drop of glue in each hole and insert an acrylic dot...your all set. Get the braile font, if you can't find it let me know.

Very Slick :)

[Joe Pelonio]

Keith,

Thanks for the help on this.

While I normally don't do a lot of these and they only charge me $2/word, it would look a lot better without the thin clear strip under it, so I would
like to try. I have the font, and will get the dots. What is the font size for the appropriate sized holes for the dots?

[Nick Adams]

What is the font size for the appropriate sized holes for the dots?

That was like a big red truck hit me, because I have been looking at doing this but for some reason never thought to just enlarge the type :o

[Keith Outten]

Joe,

A friend of mine did the research and the size of the braile is specific to the ADA standard. I believe he said the balls were supposed to be 0.059" and the part number I gave you above is for 0.062" diameter acrylic balls. The size is so close I doubt anyone could ever tell the difference. Adjust your speed and power untill you get the hole depth to half the diameter, when the ball seats on the bottom there should be plenty of glue area around the bottom half to keep it in place forever. The clear acrylic balls will blend into just about any background color and there is no color on the balls to wear off.

I think a thousand acrylic balls are about 12 bucks, the shipping is more expensive than the product.

[Roy Brewer]

Just talked to a guy that says he has figured out how to do the braille with the laser, using rastor to make the holes.

Joe,

While the details provided by Keith and others is probably all you need, there was an article in the Engravers Journal several months back giving every detail for this.

I never had been able to use the http://www.engraversjournal.com article index search --- you may want to give it a try.

On the other hand, I have a client looking for someone to supply him with the clear, stick on braille. Would you share your source for that?

[Joe Pelonio]

Roy,

The guy is not crazy about doing them so don't tell him where you
got the info. In fact here's the website so you can say you found him
on the internet: http://www.sno-kingstamp.com/Contact.aspx

and ask if he does it.

It's Sno King Stamp, Kelly, 1-800-200-9373.

Joe

[Scott Shepherd]

I'm been trying to deal with Braille, with some advice from these threads, and I'm confused and need some help.

Grade I braille is letter by letter.
Grade II braille is more complex and shortens combinations of letters into one braille character (or a series of).

Here's the ADA info from the Dept. of Justice :



4.30.4* Raised

and Brailled Characters and Pictorial Symbol Signs


(Pictograms). Letters and numerals shall be raised 1/32 in, upper case,
sans serif or simple serif type and shall be accompanied with Grade 2 Braille.
Raised characters shall be at least 5/8 in (16 mm) high, but no higher than
2 in (50 mm). Pictograms shall be accompanied by the equivalent verbal
description placed directly below the pictogram. The border dimension of
the pictogram shall be 6 in (152mm) minimum in height.


That's specifically saying you must use Grade II braille, but all the fonts I have found online do nothing but convert the text to Grade I. For instance, if you type in "MEN" and convert that to braille using a braille true type font, you get a letter for letter, Grade I conversion, but if you look at the Grade II braille for the word "Men", it's quite different.

Anyone found a method to convert text to grade II braille? I found one online converter and shows the new symbols, but there's no way to make them using the Grade I fonts.

[Dave Jones]

In doing a little reading on the web, I gather that most braille fonts do indeed contain the characters needed for grade II braille. It's just getting the right information of which ones to use.

From what I see on the web, grade II just re-uses the special characters and numbers to mean contractions of letters. I found an example, which any braille font should be able to display:

information

9=m,n

Now it is not obvious that the word information would be entered as 9=m,n but when you understand that the braille character for the equals sign is the same as that used in grade II for the contraction "for", then you start to see how it works.

Obviously some translation is needed for those of us that don't know grade II, but the characters used to do it are standard ones already in the font used for grade I. At least from what I've read today.

[Mike Null]

Is that the same dept of justice that the FBI belongs to. You know the guys who can't find their guns or laptops.

[Bob Keyes]

Here is a site that has a Grade II braille book for $9.95. Seems like a must have for folks doing braille!

http://www.braillebookstore.com/view.php?T=Grade+2+Braille+Contractions+Booklet

Standard disclaimer: I have no affiliation with this site.

[Ed Maloney]

Geeez, and here I thought interior signs would be a simple matter. Sounds damn complicated now. I saw a "hand book" about interior signage at http://www.accentsignage.com/YouDoIt/SignManualFlyer.pdf. Would it be worth getting? I didn't see the price.

[Dave Jones]

I believe the manual is $300.

[Ed Maloney]

I can't see (no pun intended!) paying that. Are there alternative resources that have similar information for starting out?

[Scott Shepherd]

Bill, I ordered the book, which I probably shouldn't have. Upon further review, I believe the entire book is written in braille!

It doesn't say, but the cover is in braille if you click on the larger view of it.

Hopefully it has written words, but I'm thinking I just bought something worthy of donating to someone who's blind and needs to learn it!

We'll see.

[Scott Shepherd]

Sent an an email to the people where I ordered the braille book and they informed me the book was entirely in braille. I told him what I was trying to do and he recommended a piece of software they sell for $19.95 that translates written text into Grade 2 braille.

So, I changed my order to that. Will report back when I get it. Could prove to be a useful tool for only $20.

[Scott Shepherd]

They emailed me the file, which was a nice surprise. It was an .exe file, which, when run, extracts into a new directory at C:\Braille\.

Once installed, it's an old style DOS program for sure. In windows, you have to go to "Run" from the start menu, or either find the executable file in the Braille directory and double click it (or create a shortcut to it).

It wouldn't run for me. It kept opening a box saying that it needed the location of the file command.com. The default was C:\Windows, which apparently wasn't correct for XP, so it sat there and wouldn't let me cancel. I had to do a Control/Alt./Delete and stop the process.

I did a quick search on my system and found the file at C:\Windows\system32, and when I entered that, the program began to work.

It's not much more than an old DOS style box that you type in. At the bottom of the box, it says "grade 1" and "grade 2". Click on either and it instantly converts to either. That's all it is. No bells, no whistles (which is fine).

It only shows the actual dots, so you have to work out where the spaces are and what characters make them.

For $20, I'm 100% certain I'll save that much by having it.

However, you might be upset with the fact that you have to know a little about computers to get it to run. I didn't email them back for help, so I'm assuming they would have been more than happy to help anyone get it run.

Glad I bought it.

Hope this helps someone.

-Scott

[Larry Bratton]

Here is some info on Braille that might be helpful. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braille
ADA signs are generally a pain to make and I never felt that I could get enough money for them relative to the time they take with a rotary machine. I use the Raster method of applying the braille after the holes are punched and that is slow work also.
Laser will help cutting out the applique for the 1/32" raised letter part and possibly with cutting the sign plates out of the plastic. Lots of people out there selling signage and I found that most times I could buy the few signs I needed, cheaper than I could make them.