project files

[Andrew C]

Here are you guys getting your project files from, everyone cant be designing all their own projects

[Neale]

Nope, everyone designs their own! You will see a few fairly common design ideas coming up pretty often, but these are generally adopted and modified a bit in each case. Every so often someone asks why there is no "reference design" published here and the simple answer is that you will never get two members of this forum to agree to it! In fact, everyone has their own priorities re size, speed, materials to cut, materials to build from, knowledge of mechanics/welding/electronics etc so designs tend to be very personal. Pinch ideas from a few other people, blend with your own ideas/prejudices/random thoughts, and roll your own!

Learning 3D CAD is a good step as it helps with the design process as well as making it easy to publish your design for constructive comment.

[Andrew C]

Nope, everyone designs their own! You will see a few fairly common design ideas coming up pretty often, but these are generally adopted and modified a bit in each case. Every so often someone asks why there is no "reference design" published here and the simple answer is that you will never get two members of this forum to agree to it! In fact, everyone has their own priorities re size, speed, materials to cut, materials to build from, knowledge of mechanics/welding/electronics etc so designs tend to be very personal. Pinch ideas from a few other people, blend with your own ideas/prejudices/random thoughts, and roll your own!

Learning 3D CAD is a good step as it helps with the design process as well as making it easy to publish your design for constructive comment.

[Andrew C]

Thanks Neale I`ll have a look at the vectric 3d tutorials, I was just looking for decorative bits to go with text on some signs. Wanted some 2d guitars and some rock band names in their style.

[Neale]

I had misread the meaning of your question at first - thought you were talking about router designs, rather than things to make on them!

The Vectric software is pretty good. I use Vcarve because I became fed up with the problems and wasted time trying to get freeware to work properly. That was a few years ago, though, so perhaps there are better choices now. If you are looking for simple outlines, then it's fairly easy to generate designs. You can even scan drawings and Vcarve (and other software, I'm sure) can trace it to give a cutting path that you can treat how you like. That might help if you are picking up logos or similar. It's then very easy to cut these as 2D shapes.