Drilling holes in a letter

[Daner]

Is there a easy way to drill small holes in a text letter and make them equaly spaced?
I would like to drill aprox 8 to 10 holes .25 dia. in a 6" letter.

Thanks in advance

[highpockets]

Are you looking to drill holes around the parameter of the letter (what's the letter) or are you looking for a pattern inside the letter?

[Daner]

Are you looking to drill holes around the parameter of the letter (what's the letter) or are you looking for a pattern inside the letter?

Hi John,
I would like to drill in the centre of the letters (text)
I was thinking the small holes would be inside a closed vector

This is my first atempt at drilling any kind of holes.

Thanks

[highpockets]

For placing the holes in the letters of the text look at the Copy along vector tool under Offset and Layout on the Drawing tab.
When I want to "drill" a 1/4" hole I use the Profile toolpath with a .125"EM and use the Spiral setting under Add ramps to toolpath.

Hope this helps...

[highpockets]

Something like this?

[Daner]

I need the holes right in the centre of the letters..Is this posible?

[martin54]

Anything is possible lol, there is probably an easier way but two ways that spring to mind for me would be to copy the text, node edit to just leave single vectors & then offset those vectors inwards half the width of the letter stroke.
The other way is to use the smart snapping & snap your drill holes to the centre

Any particular reason it needs to be exactly in the centre ??

[highpockets]

Martin is correct, anything is possible. You just need to adjust where you want the vector to follow.

Any particular reason it needs to be exactly in the centre ??

My guess is he's trying to make a marque sign....

[Adrian]

I used to do these all the time a few years ago. What I did was to create a v-carve toolpath and then a DXF based post processor to create vectors where the toolpath was and then copy along those vectors. You can also do it by screen grabbing the preview and auto tracing the tool path lines.

Doing it that way works great on larger, more complex letters as the v-carve toolpath "flows" into all the serifs of the letters.

[Daner]

Martin is correct, anything is possible. You just need to adjust where you want the vector to follow.

Any particular reason it needs to be exactly in the centre ??

My guess is he's trying to make a marque sign....

Image 281.png

Yes just like that but not with cut out letters.

I was hopping there was a gadget to drill the holes inside a closed vector
I have not yet drilled any cnc holes yet , so its a bit of a challange for me.

Thanks

[highpockets]

No gadget that I'm aware of, but it's not difficult.

Don't obsess over "drilling" holes, it's just a simple profile cut with a EM smaller than the diameter of the desired hole. For a 1/4" hole I'l use a 1/8" EM and spiral cut ramping.

[Daner]

Thanks for the help guys