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paulh-rnd / TabbedBoxMaker

Inkscape tabbed box generator plugin - quickly design complex "finger jointed" boxes
GNU General Public License v2.0
200 stars 47 forks source link

Width of line too wide #8

Closed ZenithDK closed 8 years ago

ZenithDK commented 8 years ago

I use an Epilog laser cutter, and that requires the lines to be "hairline" (to use the term from Corel). I think the line width needs to be 0.002 mm to make the laser cutter understand that it needs to cut and not vectorize: http://support.epiloglaser.com/article/8205/29827/cutting-and-engraving-different-line-weights

Not sure if this is really simple to change, or if it requires further changes to the code.

applemuncy commented 8 years ago

Don't take what I say here as absolute. As I comb though TabbedMaker code only in the drawCircle def is line width set and there it is set to one. But as I understand it, Inkscape just uses its default width of one pixel.

I think you are in error when you say the line width needs to be 0.002 mm . That would be very thin line indeed at 0.000078 inches. I read in the link you supplied they are using inches.

So something real useful in Inkscape, make a selection and then click Object on the top edge of the program, then pick "fill and stroke..". That should open a pane with tabs. the far right tab "stroke style" lets you change the line width.

I hope that helps.

paulh-rnd commented 8 years ago

Thanks for the report @ZenithDK.

I've done a bit of research and it looks like 0.001-0.003" are reliable and commonly used cutting widths for all Epilogs, regardless of resolution you use. See here for details. A lot of people seem to use 0.001", I think simply because that's the default for CorelDraw's "Hairline" width, but that looks a little fine in Inkscape so I'm going with 0.002". I've added a "Line thickness" parameter with options "Default" (1px) and "Hairline" (0.002"). Please let me know if this works for you.

No Chinese laser cutters that I know of distinguish between line sizes (only colour), so it's never been a problem for me (I have yet to use an Epilog, sadly). Please particularly test schroff boxes if they are of interest to you, I don't have any personal use for them myself :)

ZenithDK commented 8 years ago

I don't cut Schroff boxes by the way - I don't know what they are :-) Enclosures for some type of hardware I was assuming.

Thanks for adding this, will make my life a tad easier.