Efficient method to creating 3D text using AutoCAD

Today I am going to show you how to create 3D text with a very efficient method using AutoCAD. This method creates 3D text without going through the traditional and lengthy process of cleaning up text polylines or risking AutoCAD crashes while attempting to PRESSPULL those text lines.


For those who wish to skip the detailed instructions posted here, just look at the pictures from the last part of this post upwards. You should get the gist of my method pretty fast.

To start, go to AutoCAD -> Annotate Tab -> Manage Text Styles     to choose your favorite font.

Choose your favorite font :)

Then select Single Line as shown.

Next choose a location near the axis ( because changing text to polylines may move the positions of those lines to somewhere far and unexpected. You want those lines to stay as close to the axis as possible.)

Then specify the height of the text in mm. I usually use 10mm. Then, preferably 0 angle of rotation.

Enter the text you want. It is good to leave a spacing between each letter for easier editing later.  Eg, instead of  typing "Jane", you would type "J a n e".

Next, go to Express Tools -> Modify Text -> Explode Text

Select the text you want , press ENTER.

Now, here is the trick to efficient polyline text to 3D solid conversion. I will not go through the details of conventional methods, you can find those on Youtube. Basically the idea that you try to combine different fragments of a letter together, then PRESSPULL it. This method is plague with so much problems. I am not going to list those problems, you can try it on your own.

Now go to Home -> add Rectangle

Add 2 rectangles surrounding the text as shown below.

Left click select the inner rectangle, hold right mouse button to drag the rectangle outside. Release right mouse button, choose "Move here".

Select Home -> Press Pull

Use PRESSPULL on the empty space between the text and the outer rectangle. Press M for multiple selection.

Follow the instructions in the pictures above. The extrusion height should be higher than the height of your smaller rectangle (which you will extrude later), say 50mm Your final extrusion should look like this (Remember to turn "Conceptual View" on).

Go back to 3D wireframe for further extrusions as AutoCAD has stability issues PRESSPULLing lines while in other viewing modes.

Extrude the smaller rectangle with a lower height than the larger one. I color coded the smaller rectangle for easier viewing later. (Right click -> Properties -> Color)

Move the smaller block into the larger one such that all the inner spaces are filled by the smaller block as shown.

Go to Home -> Solid, Subtract

From here you should pretty much guess what I am going to do next. Select the small rectangle, Subtract all the white parts away.

And volia! Your very own 3D text!

The most important things about this method is speed and stability. I know I have said this before but I cannot emphasis those things any lesser. People who like to do their own engraving using interesting fonts downloaded online will want to use a reliable method to convert those fonts to 3D models capable for being manipulated later on. It is very heart wrenching to see hours of work going down to drain due to some AutoCAD stability issues. I hope this method serves as a basic for those enthusiasts who like to do 3D engraving for their own enjoyment.

A quick quide to Slic3r's support settings

I have used slic3r for quite a while and there is an online guide that teaches you how to use the settings in the program. Unfortunately, some instructions aren't particularly clear to me, especially for the "support material" part. So I have decided to compile a few results for comparison for whose reprappers out there who are either not sure about what those settings under " Support material" does, or are new to Slic3r  v1.17.  Lo and behold, results from a 30 minute work that can hopefully clear any future doubts you may have when using the slic3r program. If you have any questions on the slic3r program, ask me and I will try my best to help.

Hope this helps with the understanding of the Slic3r  "Support Material" settings

Some thoughts on the Z stop end

One of the most frustrating aspects of my Reprap printer was the Z stop end. For those non-reprappers out there, a stop end helps the machine to feel the boundary of its printing bed. It (usually) comprises of a mechanical switch secured to a supporting structure within the printer.

 

 Image stolen from http://www.nextdayreprap.co.uk

The problem with traditional stop ends is that they are usually secured to the metal rod as shown above. For X and Y stop ends, the rods used are usually tangent to the X and Y motion of the extruder respectively hence it is not as problematic. The same cannot be said for the Z stop end (refer to pic above for more details).

Since the motion of the extruder is parallel to the supporting rod of the Z stop end, every time the extruder touches the Z stop end, the Z stop end shifts down a few hundred nanometers.In the end, the reprapper ends up calibrating the Z stop end almost every time before use.

Z stop end V2.0 with an independent support which is more secure.

Z stop end V2.0 was designed with Autodesk Inventor (very good for speed modelling as compared to AutoCAD) and was engraved with Blender (free artistic 3D modelling software). The picture did not show the engraved words as those are on the other side. This stop end eliminated the problem I had with V1 (the first stop end design), however time proved that V2 had its complications as well.

Words are hard to describe what I faced. A well annotated picture best represents the problem.

This problem is harder to identify. Initially I thought it was the new Z stop end that was not secured. Found out that the bridge itself was prone to offsets.

And so, after a few more thought processes and some analytics, I came up with Z stop end V3. (I think the inspiration for V3 came from one of the designs found in thingiverse, www.thingiverse.com). Basically V3 directly reads the Z position of the extruder instead of the bridge (not sure the proper technical term for it) supporting the extruder and mount. Hence, it avoids the problems faced by V1 and V2 (hopefully). It does however, require some manual homing of the Z axis before each print. This is a much better tradeoff (trust me, a seemingly automatic Z homing design like V1 and V2 with a "fixed" position may ended up having the reprapper wasting more time recalibrating the Z stop end instead). Meanwhile, only time will tell if V3 can provide the reprapper with a more enjoyable reprap experience.