CNC Shark Forum

Hi all:

I teach middle school technology. My school bought an SD 100 machine.

I have played with everything and have been successful in making a few engravings. However, the goal from my building administrator was to make this an introduction to CNC in my technology class. The problem that I am running into is that I need an easy way for every student to be able to make an image that will cut in the machine. Students have Chromebooks not PC's, but I do have a lab of them.

I read some old posts where you could make a .bmp file and import them into the vcarve software, but that is not something my software does.

Does anyone have any suggestions (other than using my one machine with vcarve on it), of how I can allow students to make a project file that I could cut for them?

Any ideas?

Thanks

Randy

Hello Randy,
There are lots of formats for both vectors and images when importing into VCarve:
Vectors: dxf, dwg, eps, ai, pdf
Images: bmp, jpg, gif, tif, tff
Where are you located? Anywhere near Sheboygan, Wisconsin?
Bob

Image files like bmp aren't a straight conversion. You'll need to manually address each file a student turns in and not all will convert well.

I'd recommend you have them install InkScape on their devices and save the results as .svg files. InkScape runs on PC, Mac, and Chromebook. And it's free, so great for students.