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Looking for a good stencil font for laser-cutting text into metal

Posted: Thu Jul 13, 2023 8:56 pm
by Mike Gera
Looking for a good stencil font for laser-cutting text into sheet metal.

I tried some of the common Windows fonts (Arial, Times New Roman, Calibri, etc.) and found that they all have import errors on several of the characters. For example, today our laser (a Trumpf 2030) was unable to generate a toolpath for the letter "P" in Arial.

Any suggestions for a free stencil font?

Thanks.

Re: Looking for a good stencil font for laser-cutting text into metal

Posted: Fri Jul 14, 2023 7:16 am
by DennisD
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; Matt 7:7

These are just the ones installed on my computer.

GDT font:
image.png
GENISO font:
image.png
Proxy 1 font:
image.png
SEGDT font:
image.png
SEMonotxt font:
image.png
SERomans font:
image.png
SESimplex font:
image.png
SETxt font:
image.png

Re: Looking for a good stencil font for laser-cutting text into metal

Posted: Fri Jul 14, 2023 7:39 am
by Mike Gera
DennisD wrote: Fri Jul 14, 2023 7:16 am Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; Matt 7:7

These are just the ones installed on my computer.

GDT font:
image.png

GENISO font:
image.png

Proxy 1 font:
image.png

SEGDT font:
image.png

SEMonotxt font:
image.png

SERomans font:
image.png

SESimplex font:
image.png

SETxt font:
image.png
Thank you, Dennis. This is incredibly helpful.

For this first job, I'm looking for something a little "thicker". Any ideas?

Thanks again.

Re: Looking for a good stencil font for laser-cutting text into metal

Posted: Fri Jul 14, 2023 8:16 am
by DennisD
Perhaps if you shared your model we could provide better help.

It sounds like you are using a laser to mark and then to cut the sheet metal. Yes? Is your laser program trying to work with the SWX file directly, or are you sending it a dxf or a dumb solid?

For a "thicker" font you could use anything that has the look you want, but you might have to make the text a feature such as a very shallow cut (.0001 mm depth) and then let the laser interpret that resulting geometry. I have not worked with a laser in this way before, but have seen it done this way successfully. If your part is a flattened sheet metal part then the text feature should be placed on the flattened part.

Re: Looking for a good stencil font for laser-cutting text into metal

Posted: Fri Jul 14, 2023 2:01 pm
by Tim Hoover
We use Stencilia-A for through cutting.

https://www.dafont.com/stencilia.font
image.png

Re: Looking for a good stencil font for laser-cutting text into metal

Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2023 4:19 am
by Frank_Oostendorp
These fonts might work out.

Re: Looking for a good stencil font for laser-cutting text into metal

Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2023 8:32 am
by Frederick_Law