After seeing others do this, I wanted to do it too for my own home town. I ended up learning all about GeoTIFF and OpenMaps to get the data, and custom software generated an STL I could import into FreeCAD for the milling, and a gcode file for the laser (the laser has to follow the topology, so a generic openmaps->laser conversion wouldn’t have worked)
As for why it’s so small… I’ve “standardized” on 3x3 squares of wood for testing purposes, and have a vacuum jig on my table that holds them in place.
I’ve watched and read everything I could get my hands on, but I never have good luck running off-the-shelf software for these kinds of tasks. It’s partly because my PC is set up a little weird, and partly because what I need is usually a little different than what is offered. Plus I’m a software engineer and I like learning things
Eric, On this subject how is the laser nozzle height applied? I need on the XT8 for the nozzle to be .3 above the work surface, I went into wizard and set custom z offset to .3
but it is almost 1.75" above the work.
Sorry my mistake - I thought the tutorial was about creating topo carvings and incorporating laser into the final project - thank you for the quick reply and have a great thanksgiving!
Scott
I’ve “standardized” on 3x3 squares of wood for testing purposes, and have a vacuum jig on my table that holds them in place.
