Jay and Frank,
Kris has been through this for his own designs a number of times, so he's providing, as usual, outstanding advice.
Cheers,
Joe
Professor's Lab
Next step after PnP
Wed, 01/27/2021 - 10:55
#31
Good Advice
Wed, 01/27/2021 - 13:37
#32
Mind If I Try?
The acrylic is 1/4" thick, so those bases on the left plug into the sides on the right. (Still not ready to actually make, there are technical requirements for laser-cutting templates that I haven't done yet.)
@Frank: I have a laser cutter and tinker with it nearly every weekend. I'd be happy to use your PNG file or the native SVG, and then see what I can do with it.
Edit: For a size reference, those square holes in the middle of each base are 1/4" by 1/4" so you could poke a pencil through there.
The acrylic I have is clear, but I also have wood. I want to mess round with some dark walnut panels, and this seems like a worthwhile experiment. If I do happen to make things work out, want to see some photos?
Wed, 01/27/2021 - 14:39
#33
The Professor wrote:Jay and
Jay and Frank,
Kris has been through this for his own designs a number of times, so he's providing, as usual, outstanding advice.
Cheers,
Joe
Professor's Lab
Um... sure?
Wed, 01/27/2021 - 17:52
#35
Another alternative
...Also, I found a way to cut the nicks/ties within Inkscape, though it's tedious.
Make a rectangle with no stroke (border) and a solid fill that is exactly 0.005" thick and long enough to easy to select.
Lay a copy of it across the shape you want to nick. Select the rectangle and the target shape. The rectangle must be on top.
Use the Boolean "Difference" operation from the Path menu.
Zoom in. A lot.
Delete the four segments where the line cast a "shadow" on the shape. One of these lays along the original path that you're trying to nick.
You now have a single 0.005" gap in your path that will work as a nick.
You can USE this program on the SVG file: http://svg.zovu.co
Colink over at "The Game Crafter" (TGC) recommended it... You just need to be sure of the right resolution of your vector-based application.
Adobe Illustrator exports SVG files at 72 DPI.
Inkscape exports SVG files at 90 DPI.
Apparently it is very EASY to add "nicks" or "ties" to an SVG using that webapp online... Cheers!
Wed, 01/27/2021 - 18:59
#37
Use the "recommended" resolution for your application
...Anyway, I was using the highest resolution template on TGC which is 96dpi. Now that I know everything fits, recreating it at another resolution wouldn’t be too bad.
Use the DEFAULT resolution for Inkscape which is 90 DPI when saving the SVG.
The resolution has no effect on the "quality" of the vector drawing, since it is only LINES for the path of the LASER. There is no BITMAP content.
And your PNGs and/or JPGs should be ALL "White" I believe (the color of the acrylic). Don't quote me on this... But I would double-check this information on the "The Game Crafter" (TGC) chat. The color #FFFFFF is considered "transparent" when printing on acrylic.
Since I believe you don't want ANY coloring, you need to provide all WHITE PNGs and/or JPGs. Personally I would recommend using PNGs because there is no color degradation. With JPGs sometimes you can get "artifacts" and pixelization when there are "gradients". You want PURE white all over. PNGs don't affect the quality of the image, whereas JPGs do...
I didn't realize that you were creating the PIECES too... I thought you only wanted to create the MOUNTS. Now I understand what the square holes are for... Sorry. I thought you were trying to SAVE some money and I was saying "You already paid for the acrylic" using LESS of it just means more Laser time and more expensive than originally planned.
That looks like a CLEVER idea for the pieces! Makes for an interesting set for sure! Cheers.
The acrylic I have is clear, but I also have wood. I want to mess round with some dark walnut panels, and this seems like a worthwhile experiment. If I do happen to make things work out, want to see some photos?
Sure, have fun with it :) I emailed the SVG files to you. These paths do NOT have any nicks cut out of them yet, so each piece will fall from the slug if given the chance. They're also made assuming the slug is 1/4" thick or slightly less.