From zero to STL in five minutes
Your first sign, start to finish, without touching anything odd.
Learn
Watch it once and you won't need to ask again
We start with the one that covers the whole journey. The rest are on the way, and they come out of what people actually ask — if you get stuck on something, tell me and that will be the next one.
Start here
From drawing to printable sign, start to finish
The whole path in one video: you set up the reference with your bed measurements, draw the single stroke in CorelDRAW, export it as SVG, run it through the generator and download the STL ready to slice. If it is your first time, start here and you won't need anything else.
beginner level
When it does not fit
Printing a sign bigger than your printer
A one metre sign does not fit a 22 centimetre bed, and you don't need to buy another printer: you split it. Here you will see how to cut it into 2, 3 or 4 parts, placing the joint where it won't show, with the warning of whether each part fits and the download with every piece already separated.
intermediate level
The rest of the path
From drawing to SVG
The generator needs a drawing made of lines, not filled shapes. That's the only requirement, and it's where nearly everyone gets stuck the first time. Here's the whole thing, with the trap each program sets for you.
Why a line and not a shape
Think of the mark a marker pen leaves: it has a path, not a surface. That's what the engine needs, because it sets the channel width itself based on your neonflex. Send it a closed shape — the outline of a filled letter, a circle, text converted to curves — and it reads it as a surface and hands it back solid.
Tracing over a photo
- Lock the template. Drop in the photo of the sign, lower its opacity and lock that layer so you don't move it while you draw.
- No fill, stroke yes. One or two points, in a colour that stands out. With the stroke at zero you're drawing invisible lines.
- Trace down the middle of the tube. With the pen tool, following the path of the light, not the edge of the neon.
- End each path with the Esc key. Don't click back on the first point: that closes it.
- One path per continuous run. Where the neon breaks — the dot of an i, an accent — start another one.
- Don't trace the outline of the backing. SignFlex3D generates that silhouette itself, with whatever margin you ask for.
What breaks the file, program by program
They all do the same thing under different names: they turn your line into a filled shape with an outline around it. It's the button people press out of habit, and it's exactly the one to leave alone. The generator adds the thickness itself.
| Program | Don't use this | Export like this |
|---|---|---|
| Illustrator | Object > Expand · Ctrl+J to join · Image Trace | Export As > SVG, with presentation attributes styling |
| Affinity Designer | Layer > Expand Stroke | File > Export > SVG (for export) |
| CorelDRAW | Object > Outline > Break outline apart | Export > SVG |
| Inkscape | Path > Stroke to Path | Save As > Plain SVG |
And in any of them: text typed in a normal font won't work. Converting it to curves gives you closed outlines. You have to redraw it by hand or use a single-line font.
Before you export
- Delete or hide the template photo. If it stays in, the SVG carries the image embedded and jumps from a few kilobytes to several megabytes. The limit is ten megabytes, and a decent-resolution template gets there on its own.
- Turn on «don't export hidden layers» if your program has it.
- Leave decimals at three. More adds no precision and bloats the file.
- Tick «set viewBox» if it appears, and untick flatten or rasterise.
Check before you waste your time
Drop your SVG here and it tells you, path by path, which come out open and which closed. It's exactly what the engine sees, so if it says they're all open, it works.
Check my SVGWithout any tools: open the SVG file in Notepad and look for the letter Z. Every Z is a closed path.
And what if a letter really is closed?
An O, a zero or a circle are closed by nature and there's no way to draw them open. That's what the «Split closed curves in two» checkbox in the generator is for: it cuts them into two arcs automatically, which is what you'd do by hand with the scissors. You don't have to cut them yourself.
Stuck on something?
Write to me and we'll look at it. Most of the time it is a detail in the SVG and it is sorted in two minutes — and if the question comes up again, it becomes the next video.