What we get asked most

It is a drawing made of lines, not of filled shapes. Think of the stroke a marker pen would leave: it has a path but it has no inside.

The engine takes that path and turns it into a channel with walls. If you give it a filled shape —a normal letter, for instance— it understands you want a solid tray, and that is what it gives you back.

It takes five minutes in CorelDRAW or Illustrator, and there is a video that explains it step by step.

Yes. What we deliver is the STL file; printing it is up to you or whoever prints for you. Any filament printer works: the generator comes with fifteen models and their measurements and warns you if the sign does not fit, and splits it if needed.

The 6 × 11 mm silicone one is the most common and it is what the factory values assume. If yours measures something else, you type it in and the channel adjusts on its own.

The generator also supports the 2nd generation system, where the LED strip lies flat in the bottom of the channel and the silicone presses in on top. With one reel you cover the three silicone thicknesses on the market.

Your stroke is closed. A path that comes back on itself is read by the engine as a filled surface, and a filled surface is a tray.

In CorelDRAW: select the stroke, remove the fill and leave only the outline; and if it comes from text, convert it to curves and then to a centre line.

It means that in that area the radius is smaller than what your neon flex takes without forcing it. You can print it anyway, but when you fit the strip there it will lift or it will show a mark.

Either you soften the curve in the design, or you accept that that area is going to give you trouble.

Turn on the split and drag the plane over the 3D view. The sign comes out in two parts already separated in the file, ready for the slicer. A 50 cm sign does not fit any bed on the market, so this is the normal case, not the exception.

Yes, in your account: the measurements, the accessories and their positions. You come back a month later, you open it and it is exactly as you left it. Basic saves five projects and Expert has no limit.

It happens to everyone the first time. A closed outline —an O, a zero, a heart, a circle— is read by the engine as a filled surface, and a filled surface is a tray. For a channel to come out, the path has to be open.

The quick fix: in the generator leave the box «Split closed curves in two»ticked, in the Size section. It splits each closed curve into two arcs on its own and the channel comes out.

If you would rather do it in your own program, it is the same thing you would do by hand: select the curve, mark two opposite nodes and use Break curve —in CorelDRAW it is the break node key; in Illustrator, Cut Path—. There have to be exactly two: with one the stroke still closes itself, and with three or more you get extra joins.

It is on purpose, and it is worth understanding why.

The flat end cap fills the round cup at the end of the channel so that the neon flex, which is cut with scissors, rests against a straight wall. That only makes sense where the channel really ends.

If one end lands on another stroke —the stem of a T resting on its crossbar— or on itself —the two nodes where you split an O—, the channel carries on there. Capping it would raise a wall inside the channel, and when printed you get a blob with strings you have to cut away with a scalpel.

The generator tells you how many ends it has capped and how many it left round because they are joins. If the number of joins does not match what you see, it is almost always that your SVG has strokes touching without you knowing.

Geometrically yes, and the sign comes out fine. The problem is the assembly: at a crossing the two channels merge, and the neon flex cannot go through both. You have to cut it and solder, or run one underneath with a cable channel.

The generator counts the crossings and warns you. If you don't want them, separate the strokes in the design so they meet at a point instead of crossing.

When the stroke turns very tightly, on the inside of the turn the two walls of the channel get so close that the material left between them narrows until it ends in a point. Geometrically it is correct —that is where they cross— but it is not a part: at a 15° angle that tongue reaches eleven millimetres and ends in nothing.

The printer does not know how to make a wall that goes to zero, so it solves it with strings and a blob, and that is what you see sticking out of the corner.

It is already solved in the engine. Since version 85, where the inner wall drops below 0.8 mm —two perimeters of a 0.4 nozzle— the channel widens and swallows it. The inner wall ends in a rounded nose at full thickness, the two arms of the channel merge and the silicone turns supported by the outer wall, which on a bend is the long one and the one that really holds. The 2nd generation lip is still there, against that outer wall.

The silhouette of your letter does not change by a millimetre: the channel is touched, never the outline. The sign loses at most 0.4 % of material.

It is worth knowing that on a tight bend the inner wall did not exist any more before the fix: at a 15° angle the two arms overlap for almost 48 mm out of pure geometry. The fix adds 6 mm to that stretch and in exchange removes the edge. Even so, if you can, round those corners a little in the design: neon flex does not bend at a right angle either.

The 3D view is free, unlimited and asks for no account: upload your design and check it. When you sign up we also give you one full download as a gift, so you can see that the file really prints.

No. Both plans are unlimited. There are no tokens, no balance, no credits that get spent on a failed attempt.

We can afford it because the calculation runs on your computer, not on a server of ours: every download costs us nothing.

The STLs you already downloaded are yours for good. What switches off is access to the application and to saved projects; if you come back, they are still there.

Yes, without limit and without paying anything extra. That is what it is for. The only thing you cannot do is resell or share access to the application.