Kev Williams
09-06-2018, 1:33 PM
Not sure anyone can help with this or if what I want to do can be done--
I have a logo to engrave on what is essentially half of a 1.25" diameter aluminum ball. The logo is simply 3 characters. Problem is, they're slanted, and connected to each other. If you've ever engraved on a sphere, you know that the finished image IS going to be distorted. The trick is to counter the distortion.
As best I can, I've got that part taken care of, and the final result comes out very nice!
The issue: To do this, I have to engrave each character separately; do the 1st, have the rotary turn and stop, do the 2nd, turn, do the 3rd, done... works good! I've tweaked the 'perspective' of each character and have them positioned so they connect together nicely. BUT, to do this, it's 3 separate start and stop operations: Select only the 1st character on the main screen, click "rotary engrave" to enter the rotary menu, hit start, then "quit" to exit the rotary menu, then select the 2nd character, hit 'rotary engrave'-- etc etc...
it works, but it's BABYSIT work, meaning I can't leave the machine to do anything else, and there's hundreds of these things! I could sit my BIL or wifey down to run them, but going thru 3 setups each piece is bad enough for ME, after about 10 pieces I start hitting the wrong rotary menu item, among other things!
The move-by-split won't work because the machine splits in a straight horizontal or vertical plane, and I have angled characters, meaning it will split 2 characters, and being on a sphere, the sides won't line up due to distortion. So what I'm wondering, is if there's a way to fake the rotary into thinking it's in 'rotary text' mode, where it rotates based on individually grouped items...
I'll be experimenting, maybe one of the other rotary options will work...? if anyone has any suggestions I'm all ears! :)
I have a logo to engrave on what is essentially half of a 1.25" diameter aluminum ball. The logo is simply 3 characters. Problem is, they're slanted, and connected to each other. If you've ever engraved on a sphere, you know that the finished image IS going to be distorted. The trick is to counter the distortion.
As best I can, I've got that part taken care of, and the final result comes out very nice!
The issue: To do this, I have to engrave each character separately; do the 1st, have the rotary turn and stop, do the 2nd, turn, do the 3rd, done... works good! I've tweaked the 'perspective' of each character and have them positioned so they connect together nicely. BUT, to do this, it's 3 separate start and stop operations: Select only the 1st character on the main screen, click "rotary engrave" to enter the rotary menu, hit start, then "quit" to exit the rotary menu, then select the 2nd character, hit 'rotary engrave'-- etc etc...
it works, but it's BABYSIT work, meaning I can't leave the machine to do anything else, and there's hundreds of these things! I could sit my BIL or wifey down to run them, but going thru 3 setups each piece is bad enough for ME, after about 10 pieces I start hitting the wrong rotary menu item, among other things!
The move-by-split won't work because the machine splits in a straight horizontal or vertical plane, and I have angled characters, meaning it will split 2 characters, and being on a sphere, the sides won't line up due to distortion. So what I'm wondering, is if there's a way to fake the rotary into thinking it's in 'rotary text' mode, where it rotates based on individually grouped items...
I'll be experimenting, maybe one of the other rotary options will work...? if anyone has any suggestions I'm all ears! :)