LESSON 1:
SIMPLE NAMEPLATE WITH DIAMOND DRAG ENGRAVING
In this lesson we’ll learn how to setup a basic one-line nameplate.
Finished Nameplate
Figure 1-1
The concepts we’ll learn are how to:
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Set the plate dimensions for our job
Use “Automatic Text” mode
Enter text
Edit Text
Select the cutting tool
Preview a job
Send a job to the engraving table
Our job’s design specifications are:
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Filename: One-Line Plate.vnd
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Plate: 3” by 1” brass
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Text: Roman 3 Line, 0.3 inches high
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Open a new file in GravoStyle 5, then
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Define our plate size in the program, then
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Enter our text in the default mode of automatic text
entry with its default center justification, then
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Change the font to Roman 3 Line, then
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Change the text height to .3 inches, then
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Select our engraving tool, then
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Preview the Job so that we’ll see exactly how it will
engrave, then
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Set the job up for machining, then
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Send the job to the engraving table
Our job plan is to:
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STEP 1: OPEN A NEW JOB AND SET THE MATERIAL DIMENSIONS
Open a new file by clicking on GravoStyle’s menu choice
“File”, and then “New”. A dialog box will pop up (Figure 1-2).
Its title bar will be labeled “Material and machining definitions” and it will have two selectable tabs. For this job we’ll
use just the default tab (the left one) and enter our plate
width as 3 inches and its height as 1 inch.
Power Tip
When the GravoStyle program is already
open, you can open a new job by holding
down the control key while pressing the
letter “N” (Control-N) or by clicking on the
“New” icon at the left of GravoStyle’s top Figure 1-3 New Job Tool
toolbar.
Next, we’ll specify a border of 0.10 inches for all four sides of
the plate. We’ll do this by first clicking in the box labeled
“Same margins (determined by the left one)” and entering
Figure 1-2 Material Size Dialog Box
0.1 in the box for the left margin.
Figure 1-4 Text Entry Screen
We’ll ignore the other choices in the dialog box and click “OK” to accept this plate size. GravoStyle’s screen will
now look as shown
in figure 1-4.
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STEP 2: ENTER TEXT
Let’s look closely at Figure 1-4. We’ll see:
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The plate size shown as we defined it (3 inches wide by 1 inch high).
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Our margin of 0.1 inch shown as a dashed line.
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A dashed horizontal line and a solid red vertical line that intersects it.
When we accept the plate size for a new job, GravoStyle next defaults to the Automatic Text
Entry Screen. The dashed horizontal line is our text’s baseline and the red vertical line is the
position along this baseline where the next character to be entered will be placed. The default is Center Justification and we can see that the first letter we type will be placed in the
middle (left to right) of the plate.
Let’s enter our text (George Marshall) and not worry at this point about either the font or the
letter size. When we finish typing, our screen will appear as in Figure 1-5.
We make the following observations:
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The text is constrained within our
left and right margins.
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As we typed the
text, we heard a
“beep” when we crowded the margins.
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Figure 1-5 Entered Text
As we kept typing after hearing the “beep”, the text automatically compressed, left
to right, to keep within the margins.
This is the essence of Automatic Text Entry. If we try to type beyond the margins, GravoStyle
accommodates us by squeezing the text when we continue. In many cases we can accept
the result; if we can’t, we have the option of reducing the text size.
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STEP 3: EDITING TEXT
We’ve entered our text, and now we need to change its font and its height to match the specifications of the job (Roman 3 Line with a height of 0.3 inches). We’ll use the text properties
dialog box that appears at the bottom of the screen whenever we’re in text mode (Figure 1-6).
Figure 1-6 Text Edit Dialog Box
First, we must select all of our text. We can do this either by swiping the cursor
through the text (with the left mouse button held down) or by clicking on the selection arrow at the top-left side of GravoStyle’s left toolbar and then clicking the
Text tool immediately below it. (Figure 1-7.) We’ll know when the text has been
selected - the selected text will appear as red outlines against a gray background.
Figure 1-7
Selection
Arrow and
Text Tool
Figure 1-8 Selected Text
Now we’ll change the font. We’ll click on the arrow at the right side of the font selection window (Figure 1-9) and choose “Gravograph fonts”. We’ll next scroll down to find “Roman 3L”
and click on it. To have this choice take effect, we have to either click anywhere within the
text, click on the toolbar’s selection tool arrow or press the
keyboard’s “Enter” key.
Figure 1-9
Our job will now look as in Figure 1-11.
Figure 1-10
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Figure 1-11
Font Changed to Roman 3L
Our next task is to change the letter height to 0.3 inches. We’ll select our text again. We’ll
then double-click within the text height window at the bottom left of the text edit dialog box
and change the value there to 0.3 (Figure 1-12).
Again, we’ll make the change take
effect by, say, the clicking in the text,
and we’ll see our finished job as it
appears in figure 1-13.
Figure 1-12 Changing Text Height
Figure 1-13
Finished Job
Look Further—Text Editing
Power Tip—Margins
Notice the four-colored circle at the far
left of the text editing dialog box.
Each color represents a separate page
and each page can be selected by
clicking on its color. Other text editing tools on the other pages (we used
the green page for this job) include
kerning, angled text, case change,
character spacing, subscript, superscript, etc.
Notice the red circle on the top margin
line in Figure 1-11. It appears when we
try to move some tools ( the text cursor
or the selection arrow) past the margins. We can override this margin lock,
without resetting the margin dimensions, by clicking on the padlock icon
in the middle of the very bottom of GravoStyle’s screen.
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STEP 4: SELECTING THE ENGRAVING TOOL
GravoStyle gives us the opportunity to use up to 10 different tools within
any one job. It does this by letting us select whatever parts of a job we
want and change the on-screen color of those parts. We can then select
whatever tool we want for each color.
Our current job is simple; we’ll use only one tool—diamond drag. Our
graphic is black. We’ll leave it that color and choose the appropriate tool.
Here’s how:
Figure 1-15
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Click on the tool at the lowest-left position of
GravoStyle’s left toolbar. Its tool tip (the legend that appears when the mouse cursor is
positioned of the tool) reads “Color” (Figure
1-14).
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A window pops up. It’s labeled “Machining
tools” (Figure 1-15).
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Click on the color that matches the color of
the parts of the job that we’re selecting a tool
for. In this case, it’s black, the top color.
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After selecting the black color, click on
“Properties” (Figure 1-16).
Machining Tools
Window
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Figure 1-14
Color Tool
Figure 1-16
Selecting Color
Properties
A new window pops up (Figure 1-17). It’s
labeled “Tool Properties” and it is here that we can select our tool for
each color (in this case, only black).
Figure 1-17
Tool Properties Window
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The “Tool Properties” window has two selectable tabs, or pages, at the top. For
this job we’ll use only the default tab (the left one). This page allows us to select
colors one-at-a-time, and, for each color, select an appropriate tool, select the tool’s
cutting depth and select the type of engraving (mainly outlines only or filled engraving). In addition, this page shows a diagram of the selected tool’s geometry and we
can customize our tool definition here, if, of course, we have an actual tool that
we’re trying to define.
For this job we’ll select the black color (labeled “Tool 0).
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We’ll scroll down the window labeled “Available tools” and select the 42036020 diamond tool.
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We’ll make sure that the cutting depth is set to 0.0000 (we’ll set the actual tool
depth at the engraving machine) and we’ll make sure that we’ve selected “Plotting”
for the type of engraving. (“Plotting” is outline engraving.)
When we’re finished, our “Tool Properties” window should look like Figure 1-18.
Figure 1-18
Completed Tool
Properties Window
We’ll click “OK” to accept our selected tool, its cutting depth and our selected mode of engraving.
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STEP 5: PREVIEWING THE JOB
GravoStyle provides us with a powerful way to preview our job. It’s called
“WYSIWYRE”, which stands for “What You See Is What You Really Engrave”.
WYSIWYRE is accessed by clicking on the WYSIWYRE tool on GravoStyle’s left toolbar (Figure 1-19). It will open a new window which will
show a very close approximation of how our plate will engrave with the tool
that we selected for this job. We’ll click on this tool and our WYSIWYRE
screen will appear (Figure 1-20).
Figure 1-19
WYSIWYRE Tool
Figure 1-20 WYSIWYRE Screen
The job appears as we expect. We’ll close the WYSIWYRE screen by clicking on the boxed
“X” at the top-right of its window.
STEP 6: SENDING THE JOB TO THE ENGRAVING TABLE
We’re now ready to send our job to the engraving table. We’ll find the “Machining” tool icon
on GravoStyle’s top toolbar and click on it (Figure 1-21). The Machining dialog window will open and we’ll make our engraving table setting in it.
Figure 1-21
Machining Tool
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When we finish, our Machining window will look as it does in Figure 1-22.
Figure 1-22
Machining Window
We’ll make the following settings:
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We’ll select our engraving machine model and select the “port” setting (Figure 123).
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We’ll click on the “Upper left corner” icon to specify that our job will be engraved in
this position on the table (Figure 1-24).
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We’ll Specify that the job be engraved without any rotation or mirroring of our job
design (Figure 1-25).
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We’ll click on the speedometer icons for the X-Y (engraving) speed and the Z
(vertical lift) speed and set a fast engraving speed and a medium lift speed (Figure
1-26).
Figure 1-25
Figure 1-23
Figure 1-24
Figure 1-26
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We’ll set an appropriate lift-over height for our job to clear any obstacles when the
cutting tool is raised (Figure 1-27).
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Finally, we’ll click on the “Spindle motor” icon to keep this motor turned off. (Figure
1-28). Since we’ll be engraving this job as a diamond drag, the motor is not required.
Figure 1-27
Figure 1-28
We’re ready to engrave, but before we do, let’s make one final check. We’ll click on the Machining Screen’s “Preview” button on the bottom-right of the window. A new window, the
“Machining Preview” window will open (Figure 1-29).
Figure 1-29
Preview
Window
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We can see in the Machining Preview window that our job will be engraved at the upper-left
corner of the table (our chosen position) and that it will be engraved without rotation or mirroring.
We’ll close the Machining Preview window and click on the Machining window’s “Run” button
to send the job to the table.
We’re almost finished. The last task we have to do is to save our job. We’ll save this with a
file name of “One-Line Plate.vnd.
Look Further
We set the X-Y and Z speeds in the first of four columns in the Machining window.
There are three additional windows, and their purpose is to let us do a job in multiple
passes if we desire. The engraving speed and engraving depth is set independently for
each pass.
WHAT WE’VE LEARNED
In this lesson we’ve learned:
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How to open a new job
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How to set the plate dimensions for our job
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How to enter text in Automatic Text mode
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How to edit Text
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How to select the cutting tool
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How to preview a job
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How to send a job to the engraving table
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