DFX in Vcarve

[Scott Boatner]

Hope this is familiar to someone, client gave me a rather simple logo and letters to carve as a form for LED lighting, he sent me dfx, pdf, eps & dwg formats. I’m attempting to run them through Vcarve Pro into a Camaster Stinger II but cannot get the vectors to join. Since the format doesn’t seem to make a difference I assume I am missing something. Never had this much trouble before, thanks in advance for any help.

[Bruce Page]

Scott can you post the dxf? If not, you can email it to me through my profile page and I'll take a look. (preferably dxf or dwg)

Edit: did you try joining the open vectors in VCP? Edit Objects>Join open vectors

[Scott Boatner]

Yeah Bruce, VC join proved fruitless to me, silly question but since the file is too large to post, how would I send it to you, I'm an old guy, therefore not very computer savvy.

[Bruce Page]

Scott, I sent you an email.

[Gary Campbell]

Scott...
The .eps format may be the most user friendly file format of the bunch.

[Bill George]

Hope this is familiar to someone, client gave me a rather simple logo and letters to carve as a form for LED lighting, he sent me dfx, pdf, eps & dwg formats. I’m attempting to run them through Vcarve Pro into a Camaster Stinger II but cannot get the vectors to join. Since the format doesn’t seem to make a difference I assume I am missing something. Never had this much trouble before, thanks in advance for any help.

Do you have a CAD program? Import into it, see what errors you can find and correct. Re-Save as a new DXF file and bring into VCarve again. I have had success in VCarve bringing in the DXF and zooming in on the lines and joining the gaps.

[Mark Bolton]

If the file doesnt have a lot of overlapping vectors weld will work. If it has lots of overlapping vectors you will may likely want them on separate layers if they require different toolpathing so selecting, copying to a new file, weld or join and layering them will work.

Im with Gary, .eps tend to be the cleanest and easiest files we get. Others, .dxf, .dwg, can require a fair amount of editing especially if you need to maintain the geometry exactly.

[Scott Boatner]

Well, first off no CAD program, but after Bruce looked at it and tweaked it a bit I finally have a file that looks like it will work, I will run it later today and see. Looks like most of the issues were due to file I received being cluttered and not scaled correctly, thanks to Bruce and all for the use of your brains.

[Mark Bolton]

Vcarve is pretty much a CAD program. What I meant by copying to a new file was to have your imported file open in one instance of VCP and have a second instance of the software open to paste to. I have had to to this when receiving files that are too time consuming to correct otherwise. I simply select the needed vectors, copy and paste them into the other instance of VCP. Put them on an appropriate layer, weld/join whatever, then go back to the imported vectors and delete. Then just select the next batch and wash rinse repeat.

Good you got it licked. Its always fun seeing others techniques for cleaning up files. Too bad it wasnt easier to document here as it'd probably be helpful to many and a good topic for the CNC forum.