Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Lost lettering during milling in AutoCad 2002

> Problem is, any lettering that I put in the CAD drawing is not
> showing up after running the MILL conversion! Everything else is,
> just not the lettering. It seems as if the lettering is "separate"
> from the drawing layer even though I'm only using one layer.
>
> I'm sure I have to "explode" the lettering into PolyLines, but can't
> figure out how to do explode the lettering into polylines in ACAD
> 2002.
>

Tracy,

Here's the way I understand text in the newer versions of AutoCAD - text in AutoCAD is a "string" entity. Even though you zoom in on it and it looks like lines and arcs AutoCAD has made no easy way to
use the text for machining. (If someone is better versed with AutoCAD than I am and knows how, I'd love to hear it.)

Anyway, the way we got around this problem at one shop I worked at was to use a file from a program that has machinable text (like MasterCAM), import it into your CAD program, and copy the letters,
numbers, and punctuation into the needed locations - then discard the rest. Someone else had brought up the question earlier and I posted a couple of files to this group, one of them is .DXF. Both
files contain capital letters, lower case letters, numbers, and some punctuation marks.

Hope that helps.
Ivan