THE INVENTABLES WORKSHOP

I did a quick project to demonstrate some of our new products.  As soon as I saw the green on white two color HDPE I thought of the Starbucks logo.  I thought a nice, deep 60° V Carving of this would look great. The Inventables products I used on this project are:

Two Color HDPE, Green on White, 12" x 12" x 1/2"Vectric V Carve Pro60° V Bit. Artwork
You want to use the highest resolution image you can get.  This will give the best bitmap to vector conversion.  I searched for "starbucks logo" using Google Image Search.  You can use the "Search Tools" option to filter for larger images.  I found one that was over 2000 pixels wide.  You could search for a vector file, but I wanted to go through the more complex process of working with a bitmap for this post.  A vector file would save several steps and give the best results.

V Carve Process Start a new project in V Carve with the size of the material you are working with.  I my case that was 12" x 12…

I've been working on using the Shapeoko 2 to mill circuit boards and I thought I'd share my experiences with everyone since we get a lot of questions on the subject.

Short answer: it totally works and gives you nice clean lines. But make sure you nail the z-depth and feed speeds.

Ok, so you're going to need a couple of things here.

1. An X-Carve or other suitable milling machine



2. Circuit Board blanks, Inventables has them in 2x3" and 4x6" sizes, single and double-sided.


3. Good bits for circuit board milling. I recommend these. Once you get all that assembled, design your circuit board. I used Eagle to set up a "stress test" of the machine, with progressively smaller component sizes and trace widths.

I then exported that as a .dxf, then used Adobe Illustrator to convert that to an .svg so I could import it into Makercam. If you're using a more professional CAM software, you could probably import the .dxf directly.
If you're unfamiliar with Mak…

Inventables will be at SxSW Create Friday March 7th through Sunday March 9th in Austin. This FREE and open-to-the-public event kicks off at 11:00 am. If you will be in Austin you can catch an Interactive or Film Shuttle to The Long Center for the Performing Arts to experience all the mind-expanding and hands-on fun.
We're going to be making a big product announcement and will have demo stations set up at the event for people to step up and make something.  We look forward to seeing you there.