October Gets Talky, Tech Talky

Coming up in October we have not one but two Tech Talks to take your minds off the gathering gloom.

casting of cthulhuFirst up we have David Kirkby (Thurs 5th Oct), a talented local sculptor and maker who will be explaining the ins and outs of mould making and cold resin casting. Imagine being able to reproduce your favourite thing in glorious but lightweight bronze.

3.Test RigFor fans of animation we have Alan Clark and Doug Selway (Thur 19th Oct) who will be showing us their cunning video camera rig which allows programmable, repeatable camera control for stop motion animation. The team designed, built, programmed and fettled the rig themselves and you can see the results on YouTube.

If you want to come along, both events are completely free of charge and you can have a tour of the makerspace and a chat afterwards. Of course we’re also open on our regular Tuesday and Thursday evening slots.

Keep up to date with all things Makerspace on here or on our Facebook group.

Open Day 8th July 2017

Following on from our last great Open Day we’re throwing the doors to the Makerspace open once again. If you’ve ever wondered what a Makerspace is, now is your chance to find out. Depending on how busy we are you may even get some help and advice! Come along, meet the team and see some of our equipment in action.
There’s parking just next to the Makerspace which costs just £3 all day. Click here for details of how to find us.WIN_20170505_15_43_47_Pro

Local Nerds Challenge Cambridge

A local team of robot builders from Ipswich Makerspace took second place in the Cambridge PiWars competition at the weekend. They entered the Professional category in the prestigious robotics event, a challenge-based robotics competition in which robots created by teams compete in various non-destructive challenges. The Makerspace’s team competed on Sunday and got off to a rocky start getting knocked out of the Pi-Noon robot duel in the first round despite some skilful moves by the driver Jon Leach. They also had issues with the bright sunlight on the course for the Maze and Speed challenges. In training the robot had operated flawlessly under artificial light but the sun interfered with the sensors on the day. The team quickly recovered with an excellent run on the autonomous Line Following and a blistering time for the Crazy Golf with Phil Willis in control. A solid performance on the grinding Obstacle course boosted the team’s morale no end. The final challenge was to present the robot to be judged by Dr Lucy Rogers one of the judges from recent series of Robot Wars. Under Dr Rogers’ critical eye the team explained the highlights of their design helped by Phil’s 10-year old daughter Amy.

The team captain Keith Ellis said “It’s amazing what we were able to achieve with modern technology. Parts were laser cut and 3D-printed, we had custom circuit boards made and we even made use of Open Source computer vision software; 10-years ago we couldn’t have built this robot”.

Steve Chalkley from Ipswich Makerspace said “This was our third PiWars and we’ve been in the top three in each one. We’re very proud of our team and grateful to Rapid Electronics in Colchester for their sponsorship. It allows us to be more adventurous with our designs and produce winning robots”.
PiWars 2017 group 1

About the image:

Left to right: Keith Ellis, Dr Lucy Rogers (Robot Wars), Phil Willis (Amy’s Dad), Jon Leach. Front Amy Willis and Harrison Ellis (holding the trophy backwards, bless).
Background:

Dr Lucy Rogers is a chartered engineer, who appeared as a judge in the two most recent series of Robot Wars. She is a Chartered Engineer, Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Royal Astronomical Society, and the British Interplanetary Society. Her current projects focus on reducing the damage from space debris. At the PiWars weekend Dr Rogers judged the technical and innovation elements of each team’s robot.

PiWars

Pi Wars is a challenge-based robotics competition in which Raspberry Pi-controlled robots are created by teams and then compete in various non-destructive challenges to earn points. There are prizes awarded at the end of the event. At the weekend teams from schools, families and groups of hobbyists competed for two full days of robotic fun and games. Pi Wars took place in Cambridge, UK and was open to anyone from around the world. This year there was even a team from the USA. It is run by the same team that organises the Cambridge Raspberry Jam.

Ipswich Makerspace

The Makerspace is a collaborative workshop and community space for creative people to work, gain new skills and inspire each other. After three years of hard work the group now has its own premises in Dove Street which they are filling with high and low tech tools for budding makers. They organise a range of activities such as the regular Thursday project night. The team from the Makerspace has entered all three of the PiWars competitions winning one and coming second in the other two, a fantastic achievement given the level of the opposition. (Website: www.IpswichMakerspace.com)

Raspberry Pi

The Raspberry Pi Foundation was launched in 2008, in order to endorse and develop the Pi. On February 2012, the Raspberry Pi 1 Model B launched at just £25, and offered a 700MHz processor, 512MB of RAM, two USB ports and a GPU capable of 1080p display – all in the palm of your hand. Recent Raspberry Pi sales figures show that the humble board is, in fact, the world’s third best-selling general purpose computer after the Mac and PC. Raspberry Pi achieved this milestone by selling north of 12.5 million boards in five years. This figure beats the previous third place holder, the Commodore 64. What seems like a simple creation went through an arduous journey on its way to becoming the best-selling UK-developed computer in history. (Source: www.raspberrypi.org)

Jobs List for Our New Home

A big list of things to talk about and prioritise but I propose a working party next saturday (11th) to make a start. If you want to get involved but can’t make this Saturday have a chat with one of the committee members to let them know. Chances are we’ll be doing stuff on Thursday evenings too as long as it’s not intrusive. Also mention anything you think we’ve forgotten.

Security

Furniture

  • Main table and chairs – we need to decide what we want the place to look like, but having a big cluster of tables has worked well in the past. I’d quite like to make tables similar to the ones we used in the church hall as buying them is damned expensive. 18mm ply works well or something like scaffold planks are quite ethnic too. Having tables we can move/stack would be extremely useful for hiring out the space purposes. Chairs are available cheaply from the Foxhall recycling centre and I may have a bunch of stacking chairs we could use.
  • Electronics workbenches – up to four stations with a good set of basic tools like a psu, soldering iron, monitor etc setup along the wall between the heaters so people can just rock up and get to work. Not exactly a quiet area, but definitely a work area.
  • Tim make sticky labels for our property
  • Tim make sticky labels for other people’s property saying (On loan)
  • Lighting (I know it’s not furniture), it’s a bit poor at the moment. We can double up on the lights we already have (somehow). If we go down the cluster of tables route we can put in a row of decent lights over it. We should also replace the current bulbs with LEDs for energy efficiency.

Tools and Equipment

  • Sort through and organize all our stuff
  • Laser cutter
  • Small tools
  • Dangerous Prototypes power things
  • Consumables

Facilities

  • Fridge (Jon has one to donate)
  • Microwave
  • Toaster
  • Kettle
  • Recycling bins

Miscellaneous

  • A letter box
  • Coat of paint
  • Fix dripping tap
  • Tidy/repair/clean the loo (filler etc)
  • Lay an easier to clean floor in the loo, vinyl or similar
  • Fix the heat loss
  • Tidy/repair the kitchen
  • Sockets in the kitchen
  • Fix sliding doors to storeroom
  • Staircase non-slip paint
  • Install dexion shelving in storeroom
  • Solve condensation problem in the storeroom
  • A membership system
  • Unwire the tables and replace with floor boxes
  • Replace TalkTalk router with DrayTek router from church bungalow
  • Some form of wired networking to the tables and workbenches
  • Shelving system for member storage boxes
  • Purchase cleaning supplies and set up cleaning rota
  • Create leaving checklist to ensure space is secure and nothing is left on.
  • Install makerspace sign

Ipswich Makerspace 2017 Fund Raising

For several weeks we have been in negotiation with the owner of 11 Dove Street to acquire the lease and finally have a place to call home. Barring accidents we will be signing the lease this week.

What does this mean for the Makerspace?

Having our own space gives us the chance to develop the Makerspace in ways we’ve not been able to before. We can look at getting more tools and equipment, offer more activities and reach out to more makers. And of course we want to make all that equipment accessible and convenient so you don’t waste half the session getting set-up.

To make Dove Street the exciting and above all useful space we all want is going to take money. There’s the up front cost to acquire the lease, some for things like insurance and security, practical items such as tables and chairs and then for the additional tools and equipment.

A new membership package

We’ll be rolling out a new membership package over the next few weeks, but to give you a flavour of what’s coming:

  • You will be able to book time on the 3D printers and other machinery
  • Borrow the 3D printers to work on at home
  • Book bench space by the meeting or the month
  • Pay for meetings by standing order at a reduced rate
  • Have your own storage crate to leave your gear at the space

Fundraising

We have decided to offer everyone a chance to fund the Makerspace by purchasing “Founder’s Bonds”. We have such confidence and enthusiasm for this venture that the committee members have already pledged £6000 with a further £2000 under discussion. Each bond costs £100 and the funds will be placed in a special account and allocated to projects by the Makerspace Committee. We want people to look on the Makerspace as a long term venture and so the minimum term of the bonds will be three years. After that time bond holders will be able to apply to have their bond repaid and the Makerspace will make reasonable endeavours to do so subject to common sense and the availability of funds. As a benefit, bond holders will be entitled to a 3% discount off their annual membership fee for every £100 bond they hold for as long as they hold it.

The lease deposit, legal fees and fixtures and fittings will cost us up to £4900. We will also need some working capital to cover any shortfall in the running costs until the we can expand our membership.

What is to become of the rest of the funds?

Firstly, we want to secure the building, particularly the front door which is currently the weakest spot. In the long term we also want to install an entry system to allow members to come and go 24/7. We will need to replace the furniture as it belongs to the current lease holder, but we will be keeping the kitchen. The next step is where it gets exciting. As many of you know I’m very keen to get a laser cutter and, funds allowing, I will push to get one as soon as is practical. Jon Leach has offered to lend us his CNC machine, Dan Sloane has lent us his Rigol scope, add that to our 3 x 3D printers and you have a fantastic resource for makers. The space could also benefit from a wide range of smaller tools such as crimping tools, assorted screwdrivers, power supplies and many more. We already have a stock of resistors and capacitors, JST sockets, assorted wire etc. but it would be very useful to also stock things like nuts, bolts, screws and washers, stand-offs. There’s truly nothing worse than making good progress on a project only to have to stop because you’re missing some tiny piece of hardware.

The regular Thursday evening makerspace meetings will continue as usual and we will also try out a range of alternative events to see what works best. If you have an idea you’d like to help get off the ground or a project you’d like to see happen then please talk to a member of the committee.

We want to get our funding in place as quickly as possible to be able move forward and so we need all applications for Founder’s Bonds to be received by midnight on Friday 17th February. Always remember that this is your makerspace and your help can make it really fly.

If you’d like to contribute by purchasing Founder’s Bonds then please contact me Steve Chalkley via Facebook, or at info@ipswichmakerspace.com

Last Night of the Nerds

Last night was our final meeting for 2015 and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. I’d like to say thanks to some of the stars of the evening. First up, I’d like to say thanks to Sean for bringing in his new gadget; it certainly attracted a great deal of attention and was a lot of fun. Sean, if you have a URL for your gadget, please let me know and I’ll edit it in here, I don’t want to say too much in case I give something away that I shouldn’t.

"My God, it's full of Neopixels!" - 2001 A Space Odyssey

“My God, it’s full of Neopixels!” – 2001 A Space Odyssey

Next I’d like to say thanks to the PiWars team for bringing in TractorBot 20125 and their runner-up trophy. I think some of their swag may have crept into the quiz prizes too; I got a very handy Ryanteck IO expander which was nice. While I’m on the subject of quiz prizes, thanks to Tim for providing a mix of novelty and genuinely useful prizes. Topher seemed pretty pleased with his multi-tool and who wouldn’t love a gold wind-up toy robot? Of course, a big thanks has to go to Jon for organising the Xmas quiz again, it was funny and frustrating. It’s great to hear a room of techie types howling because they can’t remember what some of the acronyms that now run the world, or at least the internet, actually stand for.

And of course we all learned something new in the name-that-tune round, except Phil, who got it in a heartbeat; ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ played on Tesla coils. This has to be seen to be believed, 500,000 volts arcing around making the old school sounds of Lynyrd Skynyrd.  If that’s not enough, how about putting a person in between two coils, you know, to see what happens. Obviously those people know precisely what they’re doing, please don’t bbq yourself or the cat trying it out. What else did we learn? Oh yes, don’t give Vincent wine after dark, Amy knows the moves to the Macarena and I had a misspent youth. It was good to see some people returning after a bit of an absence, Alan, Simon, and Sean. Sean took time-out to get married, go on honeymoon and what not, congratulations Mr and Mrs Billings. Also a couple of new faces Sam and Peter, hope you both had a good time.

At some point I’m afraid I gave out false information regarding the makerspace rules. After removing the ones which directly or indirectly concern member’s behaviour during a Zombie Apocalypse, they are as follows:

  1. Don’t be on fire, (as per Jim’s t-shirt)
  2. Don’t trip over the trailing cables
  3. Don’t stuff Steve with the washing up

Gary did his duty by rule #2 so big thanks to him, to Peter for helping out at his first meeting, and Sara for doing the drying.

I’ll post the next meeting ‘real soon now’, but as a head’s up it’s going to involve some show and tell. Everyone is bound to get some new gadget over Christmas either as a present, when Kickstarter finally coughs out the PiJuice or when temptation gets too great for that thing they’ve been thinking about for the last six months. Bring along all Santa’s swag to the first meeting next year so we can all ooh and ah over it and add yet more critically important stuff to our wish-lists.

A final big thanks to everyone who has come to the meetings this year, they’ve been great fun and that’s all down to you, the members of this great Makerspace of ours. With creative thinking, lots of hard work and some luck, 2016 will be even better. I have to go now, I’m welling up …

Steve Chalkley
Admin

Laser Cutter Adventure

Some time ago we (Ipswich Makerspace) found a local business which had a laser cutter and was happy to do cutting for us. This was pretty handy for last years (2014) PiWars where we started with a stock platform which Keith redesigned and enhanced to create TractorBot 2014. Fast forward to a couple of months ago when we were going through the same process with TractorBot 2015 when disaster struck. The main board on the laser cutter went down and the repair cost was eye-watering. Being the true souls of repair, re-use, re-cycle we are (read desperate) we investigated fixing it ourselves. On balance we could probably have got it back up and running but the commercial risk was just too great for them. We were in a bind, right up to the moment someone said “We could get a cheap Chinese cutter!”. It must have been Phil that said it because shortly after he posted that a ‘mystery’ crate was on the way.

This is the story of Phil’s Laser Cutter Adventure told mostly in his own words. There was some initial amusement as we cast knowing engineering eyes over it, for example the aquarium pump ‘cooling system’. Or the clever ‘hole in the bottom’ ventilation. The software raised a few eyebrows too. But with a bit of effort, quite a bit of effort really, Phil was able to wrestle this cheap gadget into a hi-tech manufacturing tool. Let’s hope it lasts until we’ve cut all the bits for PiWars.

Laser Cutter Adventure – Part 1

IMG_20151013_180556789The cutter is now sited in the garage on an old table, which has some handy drawers in the front. The first job was removal of the current engraving frame (before and after images). Note the 3D printed laser pointer holder and air assist nozzle, not sure if I will use these yet as I have found some more on thingiverse.com which might prove better.

Also note the hole in the bottom of the case!!! (Visions of laser cutting the desk, ed.)

The air duct at the back could do with being trimmed down as well.

Laser Cutter Adventure – Part 2

TractorBot 2014 base for comparison

TractorBot 2014 base for comparison

So I wasn’t going to fit the new honeycomb bed tonight but I did and managed to re-use the original screws. I can still remove some of the surround but that will require some (heavy) metal work and I am not sure I have any tools up to the task.

I think this probably will be ok for starters and I also have enough honeycomb lattice to make a new table that is as big as the cutter’s maximum reach, as per this: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:273050

Laser Cutter Adventure – Part 3

So the cutter is now sited in the garage and awaiting its chiller, I thought I would have a look at installing the software and getting up to speed. The K40 comes with either Moshi Draw or Laser Draw (a plug-in for Corel as well as a standalone app). After hearing bad things about Moshi Draw I specifically brought a cutter that said it came with Corel, knowing Andy (the man with the broken cutter, ed.) used it I thought this might be best.

The install of Corel and Laser Draw went fine on a Windows 8 laptop, although I did enable windows XP SP3 compatibility for both. Laser Draw has a hardware dongle which seems petty since you can’t really use it without the cutter.

Unlike Andy’s cutter the K40 is does not appear to Windows as a printer and needs the Laser Draw plug-in to generate engraving, marking or cutting tasks. This video from BJ’s Wood Working was very handy:

Laser Cutter Adventure – Part 4

Its Alive!

Dear Laser, where have you put the text. Ah, OK, thx, bye.

Dear Laser, where have you put the text. Ah, OK, thx, bye.

Some tweaking required! After a small amount of time playing with the cutter making name tags for Amy (Phil’s daugher and our team’s PiWars mascot, ed.) and Heffalump, I have discovered that the origin for cutting and engraving are different so some more work required to sort out what’s going on.

 

Also the original TractorBot design PDF’s don’t load into Corel. However, DXF files do so we should stick with DXF for the moment.

Laser Cutter Adventure – Part 5

Luggage Tag examples showing offset between cutter and engraving, these were printed after my first attempt at compensation!

IMG_20151018_152045332

Laser Cutter Adventure – Part 6

This image shows the 3D printed drag chain and red dot holder for the cutter. Just waiting for some hook up wire. Andy brought round a very nice compressor for my air assist, so the drag chain will hold both air line and the power for the red dot laser diode.

IMG_20151020_203325

Ed: there was a stir in the Force when we all saw this. The 3D printer was making components for the laser cutter. It felt like some kind of line had been crossed and we were suddenly in a whole new landscape of possibility. I won’t lie, there was an actual few seconds of silent awe in the makerspace.

Laser Cutter Adventure – Part 7

This morning I have been trying out different materials, power and speeds. I can cut the perspex at 5mm/s and 75% power and the engraving works quite well. Although the negative image of the snow leopard has some random blotches on it which I am not sure where they came from. Heffalump was engraved at 10, 20 and 30% power at 360mm/s ( the last on hardboard and perspex ).

Gift tags anyone?

Gift tags anyone?

The perspex cuts easier than ply 5mm/s and about 75% power. The air assist works really well on the hardboard not a flame to be seen!! Perspex engraves without any visible burn. The cut is ok as long as you remove the top protective layer but leave the bottom one on.

Laser Cutter Adventure – Part 8

In this last set of images the body parts for a BaseBot have been cut out of all black acrylic. Amy instantly dubbed it Kiwi. It’s very impressive how fast a project like this can go from a download to a physical object wandering round the kitchen avoiding bumping into wall, cupboards etc. As a simple bot it’s been invaluable as a test bed for different facets of TractorBot anatomy and physiology. This one has a temporary Arduino clone in it while the Pi is in another TractorBot prototype. Thanks to the team at BaseBot and we’re all looking forward to seeing them at PiWars.

IMG_20151115_130052IMG_20151115_153548

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IMG_20151115_170749IMG_20151122_164401

Final Word

Ed: So there you have it, from disaster to triumph in one small blog. I’m sure we can cut a deal on the film rights if you’re interested. It has been a remarkable journey though, and Phil has been very dedicated and creative fettling his new machine. The 3D printed parts seem like an essential upgrade and the combo of laser and printer has allowed the team (Keith, Phil and Jon) to produce a very professional looking bot in my (Steve’s) opinion.

If you’re thinking of acquiring one of these machines then please be careful. Lasers are dangerous in a life-changing way and we’re suspicious of the value of the coloured plastic insert in this laser’s lid. It may, or may not, offer any protection from the scattered laser beam, and scattered laser light will damage your eyesight very effectively.

TractorBot Update

Things have been progressing with TractorBot II over the past few weeks (sort of). Phil has now coded a menu system via a 2-line LCD screen, which is a significant improvement over last year’s LEDs and buttons. Hopefully this will take the guess work out of what program will run when we press GO. We found the menu very handy last year, we could just boot the Pi and select the program without having to SSH in and run the code. This will be a good improvement for PiWars 2015.

We have been researching better motors, but oh my, motors are so complicated. It’s hard to get a reasonable combination of values for speed, torque, size, cost and current drain. So many variables, our heads hurt, lots. Motor and clampKeith designed a mount for one of the motors we’ve been testing and Phil 3D printed it. We’ve chosen different motors now, so this is redundant, but the renders look very cool though.

Jon is playing about with an I2C distance sensor. It’s been working on an Arduino and he’s converted the code to get it running on a Pi. This will give us an analogue distance, similar to an ultrasonic sensor but without the timing issues associated with a Raspberry Pi. We hope this will stand us in good stead in the proximity challenge.

Oh, we also have some bad news, Andy’s laser cutter has failed and it’s looking like it will cost up to £1000 to fix. If anyone has suggestions on getting an Epilog Mini controller board up and running again we would be interested to hear them. It looks like a voltage regulator has given up the ghost.

PiWars 2015 Update 2

Today we’re going to have some background on one of our team members, and get hints and tips about prototyping using a laser cutting service.

Introducing Phil Willis, team member

Phil profile photo

Jedi mind trick?

Phil started getting interested in computers at age 7, when his Dad took him to work at Essex County hospital where the Pathology department had a PDP 11 running BASIC. It ran several games including lunar lander and golf…….. all on paper via state of the art Teletype 33.

Later at secondary school, he started programming in BASIC and Forth, using a shared acoustic coupler terminal connected to a huge black and white TV and the county main frame. This experience was only for the chosen few and amounted to only a few minutes of computer time a week.

By now hooked, a series of computers came into his life, Acorn System 1, ZX80, ZX81, Spectrum and QL as well as those at Hatfield Poly where he got a degree in Electronics and Computing, learning PASCAL, C m16e, z80 and 6502 assembler.

After Poly came work at a local computer supplier writing printer drivers for a word processor running on the Commodore PET. Then on to building clone PC’s and writing some of the first PoS(Point of Sale)/PoI(Point of Information) systems using Amiga 2000’s.

In the early 90’s Phil started working for QTMS, a company specialising in monitoring printing presses and other ancillary equipment and somehow is still doing it after two buy-outs and going from a company of 6, to one of 3000.

Currently, Phil leads a team of 4 programmers spread throughout the UK and the USA.

TractorBot II

TractorBot II’s first public outing at CamJam

At home, he enjoys cooking, swimming and building robots with his children. Phil lives in Suffolk, with his youngest daughter “Miss Steady Cam” (Cheerleader for the TractorBot team). With Keith, Phil designed and built the makerspace’s 2014 PiWars entry.

Recently Phil sneaked a Tractorbot II out of its high security vault and showed it off at the CamJam.

Lessons Learnt when Laser Cutting

Andys Epilog laserDuring the 2014 PiWars build, Keith used a local firm, Cedarcroft Productions, to do the laser cutting for TractorBot. The setup run by Andy includes a Epilog Mini 40watt laser cutter with a 457 x 305mm working area (A3 is 420 x 297mm). He interfaces with it through his CorelDRAWX5 software and prefers PDF files.

Over the past year Keith has sent numerous projects to Andy for cutting, with mixed results. The cutting has been in either acrylic or harboard though mostly hardboard, because it’s cheap and durable for robots. Over the year Keith has gained valuable experience in how to present projects for cutting and what does and doesn’t work. Whilst this is specific to Andy’s setup it should be useful for others wishing to get their files cut.

There are a few requirements, Andy’s main one is that files are in PDF format, which can be loaded into Corel Draw and simply printed to the laser cutter. Keith prefers to use AutoCAD to produce the files, since he uses it at work and with familiarity comes speed. Early in the process it became clear that PDFs produced from AutoCAD were not loading into CorelDraw so Keith switched to using InkScape. InkScape’s PDFs where much better behaved, the only caveat was that all objects should be exploded and placed on a single layer.

This workflow was successful and it produced the original TractorBot and its custom parts. However, Keith wasn’t happy with using InkScape, as he found it cumbersome and not precise enough. For example, it takes quite a few steps to produce a line of a set length, and for circles it appears it is not possible at all, the bounding box of the circle can be set, but this does not allow for line thickness and as such circles are often the wrong size. This year Keith investigated AutoCAD again, he also wanted a cheaper or free solution, to allow the files to be created on his own computers rather than work equipment. After sending out a request to the Makerspace, Draftsight was recommended. A free version is available on both Mac OSX and Linux and copies virtually all the AutoCAD key bindings so Keith was able to use it very efficiently.

However, once again the PDFs created could not be imported into CorelDraw. Keith then looked at using Inkscape to import the Draftsight file and export it to PDF. It is possible but it did take a while to work out how to do it. The steps below describe Keith’s process.

1) Create drawing in Draftsight, using mm and ensuring the units were set to mm and export as a dxf. Within the drawing insert a scale bar so the scale can be checked at run-time.

2) In Inkscape, import the DXF. File/Import, select the file and an DXF Import dialog box should appear. Ensure the check box next to “Use automatic scaling to A4” is not selected and the manual scale factor of 1.0 is shown. It took Keith a frustrating week or so to work out that this is what was needed to keep the DXF at the same scale.

3) Once the image is in Inkscape, select all objects and press CRT+SHIFT+G lots of times, this should ensure all groups or blocks are ungrouped.

4) Set the page size to 450mm wide by 300mm high and arrange the items to ensure they fit within the page foot print.

5) Again, double check all items are ungrouped and on a single layer. Delete all other layers.

6) Export to PDF, File/Save as copy, making sure to select PDF in the file type pull down box.

Pile of laser cut pieces

Some assembly required

This PDF file gets sent to Andy at Cedarcroft Productions and back come the laser cut parts. Because Andy and Keith live close together it makes for a very quick turnaround which is particularly useful when several design iterations are required.