Fen End Pit's Blog

That's looking good, very neat and tidy trackwork. I found the info on the MERG controller useful as I knew nothing about it, thanks.

That's looking great, the correct area, and the correct era, thanks..!

 

I'm just wondering thought about the laser etched templot diagram on the cork, it's an idea I'd had before, but never looked into seeing how easy it was to export the templot file as a laser cutter friendly file?

 

If you had a minute to do a very quick description of the process that would be great. No point reinventing the wheel eh?!

 

JB.

That's looking great, the correct area, and the correct era, thanks..! I'm just wondering thought about the laser etched templot diagram on the cork, it's an idea I'd had before, but never looked into seeing how easy it was to export the templot file as a laser cutter friendly file? If you had a minute to do a very quick description of the process that would be great. No point reinventing the wheel eh?! JB.

Output from Templot to DXF is straight forward.

 

output -

export to file -

create DXF button

you can select the layers you want at this stage if you want though I usually export everything and then remove them in TurboCAD later.

 

I then go from the DXF into TurboCAD with all the information Templot can output in different layers. The lasercutter software has a pretty terrible DXF import function which likes things simple so I tend to remove the unwanted layers containing things like the sleeper numbers or sleeper centre line in TurboCAD before trying to import.

 

Once in the cutter software has the DXF loaded I'm simply setting the colour of the lines to represent a certain power and speed of cut which is just enough to mark the surface of the cork. I'm certainly finding that having the lines marked on the cork makes aligning the track so much easier.

 

David

That's brilliant David!

 

Many thanks for that, looking forward to getting some TurboCad time in..

 

JB.