CNC Carving With Easel

GETTING STARTED WITH EASEL

Creating an account with Easel

In order to use Easel, you need to have an account to use the online software.

Visit https://www.inventables.com/sessions/new and click on "I am a new customer," then fill out your information to create your account.

Logging into Easel

You may also use our class account. Please see Mr. Shay for the username and password.

Visit https://easel.inventables.com to login.

WORKING WITH EASEL

SET THE SIZE OF YOUR WORK PIECE

To begin, you should set the dimensions of the material that you wish to work with.

Easel Dimension.webm

SET THE BIT SIZE

Next, you will want to set the size of the bit that you are working with. There are many options that you can use and all of them will create a different look to your carving.

We will be using a V Bit with a 5° angle and a 0.0625" width .

Apr 2, 2019 9:26 AM.webm

CREATING YOUR DESIGN AND IMPORTING IT TO EASEL

In order to carve a design or image into a piece of wood, you need to create an image file on your Chromebook or computer.

Depending on what you are most comfortable with and how complicated your design is, you may wish to do this in Google Drawings, Gravit Designer, or Easel itself. Links to design tutorials are listed below:

Google Drawings

Create your designs in Google Drawings and download it as a .PNG file. For best results, use only 2 or 3 colours in your design.

In Easel, click on IMPORT, then IMAGE TRACE to convert your file .

Easel Image Trace.webm

Gravit Designer

If you created your design in Gravit Designer, export your file from Gravit as a Scalable Vector Graphic (.svg) file.

In Easel, Click on IMPORT, then SVG to select your file.

Easel Import SVG.webm

Easel

If you wish to create a carving that uses only simple shapes or text, as well as some pre-created content, you may use the tools and icons available in Easel to create your design.

Easel Using Icons.webm

FINE TUNING YOUR CNC CARVING

FINE TUNING YOUR CNC CARVING

Once you have imported an image file, you may wish to adjust how deep the CNC machine carves parts of your design, and if it cuts out an outline of your design, the whole thing, or some combination of the two. Please see the video to watch examples of this.

Easel Fine Tuning.webm

EXPORT G-CODE FROM EASEL

In order to produce the file to run through your iCarver, you need to produce a g-code file.

Click on Machine > Advanced and then click GENERATE G-CODE then EXPORT G-CODE when the option appears

Easel Export.webm

CARVE YOUR FILE

First Time Carving a File?

Head to the CNC machine in the lab and ask Mr. Shay to walk you through processing your .nc file that you created using Easel.

Carved a File Before?

Please follow the step-by-step guide on setting up the CNC machine.

Video tutorial

USING THE CNC CARVER WITH EASEL

The General iCarver that we have is great and will carve out pretty much any image we throw at it, but the software it comes with takes forever to run.

Using Easel to create CNC carvings allows the General iCarver cuts down on the amount of time the machine takes. Read below to find out how to run this software.

See Mr Shay for the Username and Password to use.

Easel Instructions.mp4

Download the Raptors logo used in the video here.