Engraving tips (V-Groove or Round Nose bits)

Howdy Y’all!
Merry Christmas! So I’m still waiting on my motor mounts to come in then I’ll be diving off the deep end of setup and assembly. In the meantime I feel like I have been wondering if anyone out there has any experience or tips and tricks with engraving on the Maslow. I’ve been looking at buying some V-Groove and Round Nose bits but wanted to see how they work first. I am guessing it will be super simple on Maslow but thought I’d reach out to see what everyone’s experience might be like.

Cheers,
~Ben

Engraving is one of the things I’ve noticed the machine is very good at. I use small 1/8" engravers myself and the detail it gives is quite nice. Also seen quite a few signs made with a v-groove bit. I haven’t seen anyone try a ball nose bit yet but it should work fine. The only consideration I’d make is the feed rate there. A 1/4" 2 flute ball mill (which is pretty typical) needs to be run around 2000mm/min @ 10000 rpm, and that’s faster than the Malsow can currently feed (which is 1000mm/min). An 1/8" one would work well, however.

The trick is to get your depth right. One thing I think we’ve noticed is that we often have too deep. With my little engraving bits, I originally went 2mm into the material but found that to be too much. I revised my depth to be .5mm and that was much better.

My profile pic is a good example of engraving.

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I used a 90 degree vbit for making some signs that i liked the way they turned out. I ordered a 60 degree bit that I am putting on tonight. I expect I will like those results much better. i have been using Inkscape with single line fonts (CamBam) and then makercam to create the gcode with decent success. setting zero and then getting a good depth with the vbit is the hardest part for me.

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Thanks for the tips and advice!

Thanks @Tim_Thompson!