Engraving help

[AMRC1]

I have purchased a stepcraft Q404 Machine along with V Carve Pro software. I am struggling getting my engraved line to be wider. When it engraves the line is so narrow that it is hard to see. I know there should be a way to offset to the outer part of the line by .002 then .004 to build my engraving out to a wider line. Doing everything in Adobe and then sending file over to V Carve, sizing and going from there as to the quick outline and loading tool path. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Andy McCoy

[AMRC1]

Forgot to say that I am engraving on .065 Alum.

[schafferbg]

Andy - First question: Why are you doing everything in Adobe? I can see you importing the artwork from Adobe one time - then you should be doing all the "modifications" (changes, clean-up, eliminating duplicate vectors, closing open vectors that need to be, etc.) in VCarve.

Laser etching lines are just that . . . a line burned into the material by a super tiny laser beam. In metal, you won't burn the edges as with wood - (which makes them look wider). A line is a line is a line. The only way to make lines "wider" is to burn several lines side-by-side to achieve ONE line the width you want. Measure your line in the aluminum that you just did - then offset the original line by that amount or slightly less. i.e. - create multiple lines offset by 80-100% of your measured line width. So . . . you are etching 2+ copies of your line(s) offset the appropriate amount. Make sense?

[adze_cnc]

schafferbg: Fascinating. Nowhere in the original post is "laser" mentioned. What makes you think this is a laser etching? For me the mention of aluminum sort of negates laser (unless it's powered-coated aluminum).

AMRC1: when you say your "engraving" are you referring the the "Quick Engrave" toolpath or the "V-Carve / Engraving" toolpath?

[Aussie]

Too many maybe’s
Could be an end mill or a laser or even a drag bit???
More info required.

[martin54]

If you can upload your crv file (copyright permitting) that would help, if that isn't possible then some screenshots showing what you are doing would help.
One thing you need to understand is that artwork for cutting on a cnc machine or vinyl plotter is different from printing, you can't increase the stroke width if you want a fatter line as you can with printing, there are other ways to do things like that