How to create signtray using flexi enroute

[cmykburnley]

Hi guys

Im using a flat bed router which I bought earlier this year.

At the minute im buying in signtrays. But they are quite expensive.

I have the tools but no idea lol.

Im told that flexi enroute you can create the files for a sign tray, but could anyone help me out with any pointers?

 

[Evan Gillette]

What material are you planning to use? It's pretty simple really, depending on your setup the hardest part is getting your hold down and spoilboard sorted so you can get a consistent depth of cut. Then it's just a V bit and draw a few boxes. Here is a good reference of how they are typically made with acm.

 

[netsol]

Evan,
What plastic would I use for an illuminated sign tray?
We are developing menu boards for a client and this gives me quite a few ideas

 

[netsol]

Wow, I have learned something today...

 

[cmykburnley]

Id be using acm.

Ive tried to do it within illustrator etc. Easy enough. But id like to do in flexi enroute as i can set up the tools and depths etc. Well apparently anyway.

 

[cmykburnley]

Someone mentioned multicam had a software addon for making sign boxes that could be purchased individually, I assume with tool changes and depths, but if I recall correctly it was $7k, and afik it only runs with multicam machines.

Ouch thats expensive!

I mean the job itself should be easy to do. I bought in one to see how they did it.

Its just the setting up

 

[Evan Gillette]

You can use any software you want to draw it, or just draw it directly in en route. I usually draw in flexi and save as dxf file then import into en route and assign toolpaths.

 

[Evan Gillette]

 

[Evan Gillette]

 

[cmykburnley]

Yeah that’s my plan. I think it’s more how to use enroute and tool paths etc that I struggle with. There isn’t many tutorial videos for enroute that are the right thing

 

[Evan Gillette]

I agree, it has severely fallen behind vcarve, I bought my router used with an old en route 5.2 license and dongle and use it for now until I can justify building vcarve pro into a few carved projects. This is what I do:
1) start with the face (rectangle), this will be an engrave toolpath (or could use a route offset but make sure its on-line instead of male or female) with a v-bit
2) add the corner lines out (you can use a rectangle/square if that is easier as it gets cut out anyway, same thing as the rectangle, engrave with v-bit
3) draw or copy/paste both of the above and combine them so that it is just the outer edges, this is your cut out, assign a route offset toolpath with your cut out bit.

 

[cmykburnley]

Thank you so much. I’ll fire enroute up in the morning and give it a go

 

[Evan Gillette]

Feel free to message me if you have any problems, I'll do what I can to help.