engraving shapestring on current master

Hi,

I have successfully engraved a few jobs in the past ( maybe FC 0.19 or 0.20 ). Although it was inordinately complicated, I found a few videos which gave a working method, but now I try to do it on master the goal posts have moved once again.

I tried opening an old project which had worked but the tree seems borked with lots of things out of place. I guess that non backwards compatible changes to FC how borked what was a working file.

could someone outline the process or point to a guide or video which explains what is needed.

TIA.

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OS: Fedora Linux 38 (Thirty Eight) (LXQt/lxqt)
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.22.0dev.35525 (Git)
Build type: Release
Branch: helix
Hash: 9bb9eb8b218bd5af0e4ed199b65ab61c7238364c
Python 3.11.7, Qt 5.15.11, Coin 4.0.1, Vtk 9.2.5, OCC 7.6.3
Locale: English/United Kingdom (en_GB)
Installed mods:
* FreeCAD_Assembly4 0.11.10
* Curves 0.6.22
* freecad.gears 1.2.0
* AirPlaneDesign 0.4.0
* Plot 2022.4.17
* CurvedShapes 1.0.5

Have a look at Code Restructuring - JobFixer Script and the nitty gritty background in
Path Workbench Code restructuring - heads up

These are the first two pinned topics in the Path/CAM sub-forum, which makes it a lot easier to find if you are like me and keep forgetting the keywords to find these!

Thanks. My main problem was not being able to get a path on a ShapeString. I was forgetting the fixer, though last time I used it totally trashed the file anyway.

I did manage to get the path. For reference, this is what I did.

Made rectangular block in Part Design.
In Draft WB I selected the top face with Utilities | Select Plane.
Then created the shapeString.

Flip back to PD WB and created a pocket from the face with the text on it.

Flip to Path WB, new job , add v-shaped tool.
create a deburr path on the main face of the block now hollowed out text.
Reduce W,H of the deburr to nominal small values like 0.1 mm ( could be 10um for precision ).
This gets a path which follows the outline of the text.

On the CNC , I lie about z-0 to get the depth of cut I want on that line.