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Excellent ! I'm delighted 😀. Have fun .

heheh, yeah, I was being a bit optimistic with the plastic casters . Yeah, it's as level as its going to be and I've smeared cheese all over it. 🤣 - seriously though - lubed all the surfaces and checked all the gib strips.... it's doin' okay. very grateful.

good luck Andy, you can do it 🤣

At that point (after adding orientation points) you don't get Gcode, at that point you are READY to make your gcode- as shown in the rest of the video... if you are following the rest of the video, and it still isn't working, then perhaps the PATH you have entered isn't quite right. The software has generally worked for me, I hope you can get it working, good luck. - to see if the problem is the save PATH , then you might try saving to a path on a drive in a place like the DOCUMENTS folder or perhaps on the desktop. Some locations on the C: drive are protected by windows and it simply won't let the software write data there. - good luck, I hope you get it working.

do you think it is because I am using inches instead of mm it is not working for me?

i wouldnt expect that to cause an issue but I havent tried it. I have had other commenst from americans who I assume are using inches who seem to be managing okay. I had a request from somebody about how to set up the output folder so I did a video a while ago, thats why I suggested the output path thing. Without more info its hard to work out whats going wrong... @@antsniper

well, this is Gravity Sketch running on a Pico4 VR headset. The video is a recording straight from the headset. You run gravity sketch and then you're in VR. Then you IMPORT some STL file , like the sort you make for 3D printing. To do this import, you make a LANDING PAD account and then upload your files to that. Then from inside Gravity Sketch you can access those files from the wrist-menu thing, and open the files in VR. I sometimes do that so that I can see how big they are before printing them. So then once you open the file(s) in VR , like you see me doing in the video, you can pick it (them) up and manipulate it (them) , - (if you open several things you can try to assemble them, but thats VERY tricky...).. anyway, when you're in VR in gravity sketch, , if you reach up to where your 'goggles' would be and click , you 'grab hold of' your goggles and by dragging away, you "remove" them (vitually) and you are then in Augmented Reality, like you see in the video, where it mixes the VR objects with the headset cameras view of the room. It's great fun, but perhaps of limited use.... Great for showing people who are new to VR though . Enjoy!

@@dingolovethrob Awesome !! Thank you so much I'll try it out

Check this out, best homemade EDM machine.

Hi there, no I've not used it for that at all. I have definitely seen tutorials on CZcams for that sort of thing though. Never tried it personally though. If I have a minute or two I might look into it, if I get anywhere I'll let you know. I found this video where the chap goes through how to do that: czcams.com/video/yUTVOTDbDRI/video.html its 11 years old though so things may look a boit different now.

None of the tools that make Gcode (of which I am aware) seem to be trivial to operate, so you do have a point there. Speaking for myself, I use Inkscape for this:- * because it's free, * because this method works on all sorts of shapes and paths, * and I have tried other free tools and none of them have worked quite as well as this. Using this method I've cut front panels out of metal, made garden signs with text & borders carved from wood and last week I scanned a complex-shape item on the photocopier , drew a path around it in Inkscape and then turned that into a toolpath and used that to cut out duplicates of the item. With free softeware. I'm always interested in better ways to do this , especially if the s/w is free.

@@dingolovethrob thanks, I do a lot of 3D printing but I'm new to CNC. 3D printers are pretty popular and widespread so that's probably why they're free software is so much easier to use even though it is still kind of complex. Probably has to do with the fact that CNC machines are less common and so the market's smaller so less demand. I finally got it to work but it was a pain.

UPDATE!!! The free online CAD tool ONSHAPE has a free plug in available that generates toolpaths and it works really well. I'm not familiar with Onshape myself but my colleague at work uses it for all his stuff and knocked out a design for a front panel for an electronics box in a lunch time and generated the toolpaths in under half an hour. We cut the panel out that afternoon. So maybe check that out. Have fun. - If I learn how to do it I'll be sure to post some videos detailing the entire process 😀

So the output text file is in my example output_0003.ngc - and that is the gcode. You might prefer to change the file extension to another such as Outputfile.gcode for example. To send that output file to the cnc you'd use a program like UGS , (Universal Gcode Sender), or GRBLPanel , there are many of them around. If you watch the video that I link to above in teh video description you'll see an example of the gcode being run in a simulator (Camotics) - that checks the gcode is doing generally the right sort of things...

Blimey ! Thats a 'tall order' ! - and your description is a bit vague.... It sounds like a lot of work , the sort of thing you'd only want to do if it wasn't possible using readily available tools. The first thing to do would be to look at the programs that are supplied with laser cutters. they often have a raster setting where the software will burn in a raster pattern and the intensity of the laser is linked to the luminance of the pixel, so they do teh job for you. However if you want to do the entire thing yourself in c# then you need to start by defining exactly what it is that you want to do....

I don't know how to do that automatially with Inkscape, never done that myself. We can conveniently turn the outline of the letter into a path and then we turn that path into a tool path. To hollow out the entire letter it would need to do something like a 'raster scan' for example where it does lots of lines within the outline. I'll have a look and see if I can find any way to do it in Inkscape. I found this video where the chap goes through how to do that: czcams.com/video/yUTVOTDbDRI/video.html its 11 years old though so things may look a boit different now.

@@dingolovethrob Yes, that was super helpful. Still playing around with it to get the cuts I need for the bit I'm using but I'm almost there. Thanks muchly!

yes I can 😀 czcams.com/video/l7ZDS_OkiLY/video.html I hope thats of help.

u gonna dynamite my tiny lil froggies? oooo nooo !

Oooh, I bet that it's doing several cuts over the same path..... possibly at succesively deeper cuts. (That got me a few times when I did my first inkscape generated cuts.... ) - Please watch the first video i did (which uses the older version of inkscape but illustrates this exact issue) - you can control this behaviour with the values in the dialog boxes in the Generate Gcode stuff and the video shows me discovering that exact issue in the Camotics simulator.. Also - PLEASE try the Camotics simulator software , I find it absolutely inval;uable for seeing what the generated Gcode is doing. thats also covered in that first video. --> czcams.com/video/JkVj2MAyj18/video.html I hope thats of help. 😀 By the way , I have no relationship with Camotics in any way , its just damn useful software and its totally free.

I have corrected my own mistake. I had inadvertently entered 5.0 in a box that I thought was something else. Problem solved! Thanks for your help.

I agree! Tried your scaling suggestion and it worked like a charm.

I always have trouble to export the gcode. It always said the directory doesn’t exist. Can you make a video about it?

Check and double check document settings scale and units before generating gcode. Inkscape will change those behind the scenes while you're working.

In the preferences tab : in the first box called 'file' I put a filename and extension like Thefilename.GCODE This is the TEXTFILE that it will stuff the gcode into. It will use the filename and extension that you specify in this box. Also I tick the box labelled Add numeric suffix to filename - so that it makes a new file each time rather than deleting the previous one, I find that makes it easier to keep track of what I'm doing. files generated will be called Thefilename1.GCODE , Thefilename2.GCODE etc. The next box is 'Directory' that is the folder where it will make the gcode files. I put mine on a date drive but I have also used a foldere on the desktop so it's easy to find. So my present path entered in this box is something like this:- F:\zDATADrive\GCODE and CNC\GCODE FROM INKSCAPE Z safe height is teh 'fly height' and I leave it at 10mm. Units I leave as mm Post-processor , I leave as None , ( I have never tried any of the other options ) Addional port processor I leave blank Generate log file is ticked on my installation Full path to log file is blank so I have no idea where the log file is , I ghuess I shoudl sort that out. Thats all I can say really. I hope thats of some help.

@@dingolovethrob Thank You Very Much. I was able to make it work! Thanks Again.

looks like they've updated it - I'll download the latest version 1.2.2 and see if I can work out what's changed..... if I work it out then i'll post an update or maybe a follow up video. -pete

I've downloaded the new version of the s/w (v1.2.2) and it works in the same way. Provided you have converted the object to a path and have it selected then the gcode function Path-To-Gcode should work.... if it doesnt then I'm not sure whats going wrong for you.

I can't be sure whats wrong, but when I had problems I often found that I had forgotten to turn the object into a path before trying to use the Path To Gcode functions. Beyond that I'm not sure what to suggest.. - oh, and I just watched somebody elses video and they show how to bring up the green box :- see the video by Matthew Smith called "Gcodetools Tutorial Part 2" good luck.

Just to buy 2 more buttons. 😀 There are already spare pins on the arduino for them if you wish them to do functions OTHER than the existing ones. If you want them to do the same job as the existing buttons then you'd simply wire them in parallel with the existing buttons.