Autocad text curves are jerky

[billa6171]

Hi Zax and everybody, i have spent months on Autocad Fusion 360 to create a large sporting plaque, i chose Fusion because i know a little about autocad from long ago and the creation of the boxes by exact duplication is excellent BUT when i add the text for each game result, explode the text, export to dxf then input to T2 the curves on every letter is broken into little bits of geometry. The laser then jerks its way around and looks like it powers the laser up and down after every tiny segment.

Is there a way to explode this better or fix the dxf file? OR Give up on Fusion.

Ideally i would like to do something simple and fast like you create a table in a word document, merge the cells to make bigger boxes, enter the text, centre bold etc, punch it out to T2.

Something really odd, if i send the plaque to to T2 without the text the corners of each game outlines flow smoothly in one curve, when i have the exploded text in each box it somehow effects the corner curves too and breaks them into jerky segments. (The curves look fine in fusion)

I have attached both files if anyone wishes to try running a little bit, you can tell smooth versus jerky from the first square.

I have been working on this plaque since last september and very frustrated with drawing software, if anyone can show me a sample plaque similar to mine in Corel, Rhino, anything i will invest further time to get this going.

Sorry just found out the size limitations of uploads, i will have to produce a small example with the text.

Thanks

[Zax]

That's interesting, some of the boxes are correct (connected polyline) but others are exploded to lines and arcs which go in the wrong direction. This will cause the laser to stop, move to the start of the arc and move back to the line and then stop again which probably looks very jerky.

I suspect when you exploded the text you had some of the boxes selected?

You also have some extra arcs on the corners of some boxes which would result in double engraving (e.g. 2nd one down from top right and top medium sized one in the center), and the lower left has an entire duplicate.

You will need to remove the duplicates and extra arcs in CAD and it would be best to keep the others as polylines so they're continuous paths but you can also fix that in T2Laser using the DXF Optimizer (which will also speed up the job so is probably good anyway).

[ggallant571]

Opened your dxf file in libreCad and got 2 error messages regarding blocks and elipses. New version of Linus and Cut & Paste plus message save do nothing.

I use openscad for almost all my cad work. I come from a software engineering background and find the "C" like notation easy. Attached is source code and generated file. Elapsed time 37 minutes.  Change the *X, *Y, *R and GAP to reflect the sizes for your plaques.

DFX has a number of deficiencies and incompatible versions. SVG is a "better" model with a well defined opensource specification.

[Zax]

The DXF opens fine in T2Laser, as well as QCAD and TurboCAD so I don't see anything wrong with the format. It's just the drawing has some issues that are easily solved before exporting.

[billa6171]

Great thanks people, i was suspecting maybe the "square" was accidentally selected during text explode, i will try to redo those. Thanks i was aware of the duplicates in some corners.

I will try the dxf optimizer on the version with the text and give you updates.

I will add openscad to my list to look at thanks

[Zax]

If you need any help with the files just e-mail me and I will take a look.

[billa6171]

Ok people because it now takes about 10 minutes to make 1 change in the autocad fusion 360 , this is because there is 25 game results with 4 lines each and all exploded to geometry.

SO i spent a day to come up to speed with Inkscape, drew 3 little game boxes and save them as DXF files.

GUESS WHAT, same result from inkscape, the corner curves are jerky same as autocad, and the text is exactly the same, stop/start of the laser on every little curve.

I will attach the inkscape file and the dxf file if anybody wishes to try and run this dxf file thru their laser.

I have tried the dxf save with all of the options in the save dialog box, the only change was the very first option LWPOLLINE produced extra 50 diagonal lines from points.

I have played with some of the dxf optimiser in T2 but that does not seem to fix it.

Should i give up on Inkscape too?


Very frustrated.

[Zax]

I don't see any issue with that file, so perhaps there's something else wrong.

Using DXF Optimizer cut ~30 seconds off but otherwise both worked as I would expect.

I made sure to run these with all my default parameters using my Grbl 1.1e DEFAULT firmware, so in the Help menu click Restore Defaults (that resets T2Laser settings) then on the Laser Controller screen in the Machine menu click Send Default Parameters (assume you are already using my firmware).

If laser mode is disabled it would do what you are seeing, I've heard other software disables this without asking (no idea why?) but above should clear that. It's in the settings / advanced menu near the bottom if you want to check.

[billa6171]

As they say in Oz(Australia, not pronounced Aus), bloody brilliant.

No idea what had happened but only did what you asked and i works fine.

Great support Zax, thanks again.

[Zax]

Awesome!