3D Stars CNC Routed w/Pic

[Keith Outten]

Below is a picture of a 3D star that Aaron made the other night. This is our first time using the 3D capabilities of our ShopBot. A generous ShopBotter uploaded the file and made it available for free recently on ShopBots Forum.

The 6" diameter star was routed on a scrap of African Mahogany I had left over from another project. When we first purchased our ShopBot Jim Becker asked me if we intended to produce some wood projects in addition to the Corian sign blanks we had purchased the router for. Jim, here is the first of many projects to come...now we need to purchase the software so we can start designing our own projects.

[Chris Padilla]

Very nice, Keith!

[Michael Perata]

What is the diameter of the star - looks to be about 4-6"?

[Chris Padilla]

The 6" diameter star was routed...

hahahaha

[Dan Racette]

what type of file does the shopbot software need?

[Keith Outten]

Dan,

The native file is an sbp for ShopBot Part file. Basically you can import a dwg file, files from CorelDraw or any other vector drawing into Part Wizard which is the drawing program for the ShopBot that also allows you to create your tool paths. Part Wizard will then export the sbp file to the ShopBot Control software that is used to actuallly run the router.

ArtCam Part Wizard is a 2.5D program, the 3D ArtCam Pro costs $7,500.00 which is why we don't own it yet. We can run a 3D file created by someone else we just can't create 3D files with Part Wizard. Another limitation of Part Wizard is it will only V-Carve ten fonts, the Pro software will V-Carve any font. My photo doesn't do the carving any justice.

[Aaron Koehl]

Keith,

Perhaps taking the photo of the piece at a slight angle would reveal more of the relief (by adding shadow)..?

[Corey Hallagan]

Very Cool Keith!! Incredibe!

Corey

[Keith Outten]

Thanks Corey

Aaron, I had to disable the flash because it made the star look like it was reversed. An optical illusion I guess. After several photo attempts without flash this is the best I could come up with.

[Mike Kelly]

Keith, I see you found Ron Brown's Texas Star! Good work. Here is the same star in a mantle I did last year. The pictures aren't close-up, but you can see the origin. I put them on small panels on the front and sides. They are impressive and can be used like rosettes.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=16703

Wayne Locke here in Austin did these for me on his ShopBot from Ron's software.

[Keith Outten]

Mike,

I missed your thread on the mantle, thanks for the link and I enjoyed the pics. Ron's Texas Star is a really nice program and I hope to be able to use it as well as you did in your mantle. I have been doing some research and there are lots of sample files that ship with ArtCam Pro, one of them is the grapes and vines that are very popular.

Because the 3D capability is so powerfull a software purchase is just around the corner

[Dean Baumgartner]

Keith, will your software take a .sat file? We use AutoCAD inventor at work and it exports .sat files. Also there are more and more places offering parts drawings in that format. There's an inexpensive 3D package out that will also work with those files. The name is on the tip of my tongue.

If you can import that format I'll check around on the name.

Dean

[Aaron Koehl]

Mike,

I'm not sure how I missed your mantle post, but very nice integration on the star!

Dean,

I don't think the software works with .sat files, but there seems to be a converter for just about everything out there.

We do have a copy of MillWizard (by Delcam) used for generating 3D toolpaths for the ShopBot, as well as a few free toolpathing and mesh creation utilities, so hopefully we'll be able to work our way up to ArtCam.

Now all I need are some ideas..