Reverse engraving or mold engraving

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25 Feb 2019 02:44 #127079 by acemachinist
Reverse engraving or mold engraving was created by acemachinist
Hello! New to group.
Does LinuxCNC offer reverse or mold engraving?
We are making serial tags that get used for 1 day, (Like a date code) on a mold.
Now doing it on OneCNC, mirroring, write code, download, and run.
Very time consuming when doing 2-3 tags. Break even around 9 pcs if we get and order for that many.
It's one of the crap jobs that gets us better work from the same customer.
Doing it on a Fadal 40-20 now which is a waste of a bigger machine.
Bought a nice used Prototrak because it has built in engraving, but it wont do reverse engraving or Mirror standard engraving.
I'm thinking about dropping back and punting on an old Bridgeport BOSS 3 with steppers and put Linux on it.
Have had this machine for 25 years. Converted it to machinemaster many years ago, Basically some basic software that controlled step and direction. Was way better than BTR or paper tape if any of you guys remember that.
Or if it would work on one of these cheapo ebay 3 axis engravers,
The tags or small, size of your little finger or less. Aluminum and engraving about .03 deep.
We have a fixture that holds 9 that is the size of your hand.
Any and all input is appreciated.
Thanks in advance!

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26 Feb 2019 22:30 #127205 by andypugh
Replied by andypugh on topic Reverse engraving or mold engraving
If you are talking about a machine that is used _only_ for that job then you could simply configure it with one axis reversed to get the mirror effect.

(And this could be only one of several configs that run the machine, so it would only be a restart of LinuxCNC to switch to conventional)

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27 Feb 2019 04:41 #127221 by MartyJ
Replied by MartyJ on topic Reverse engraving or mold engraving
Reversing one axis is clever, that'd do it.

What's your CAM system? Why is reversing something such a big issue that it necessitates features built into the CNC machine? I've built many things, from microfluidic devices with 2 micron features, to tooling for injection molding, to guitars on CNC, and never once have I felt like I needed to change the machine to suit the application.

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27 Feb 2019 10:40 #127236 by pl7i92
Replied by pl7i92 on topic Reverse engraving or mold engraving
insted of Reversing the Axis you can Reverse the Gcode
How claver is this

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27 Feb 2019 20:33 #127289 by Leon82
Replied by Leon82 on topic Reverse engraving or mold engraving
Write an engraving macro, the macro program would have gcode for the letters reversed and you would just type in the date you would want to engrave

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27 Feb 2019 20:38 #127290 by andypugh

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