Is there a way in Illustrator (or AD) to join multiple line segments to a curve/path? I’ve tried multiple times and am missing something obvious…
Here’s what I’m seeing when engraving the SVG linked below…
raster spiral test.svg.zip (33.2 KB)
I have an ugly workaround – rasterizing the whole design (this is just one element of a complex design) – but I really want to understand why the SVG isn’t working.
Thanks!
Do you want to engrave it or score it?
If you are engraving it, create the circle (Object > Expand) and some overlaid straight lines (Object > Expand). Then move the line shapes over the circle and use the Unite tool in the Pathfinder menu. That will turn it into fill that will engrave solidly.
If you are wanting to score it, make the circle and the lines different colors. Then just set scores for each.
(Note: edited steps assuming you want an unfilled circle. Expand the parts separately first.)
Aha – I was doing is bass-ackwards. I was trying to draw, join, then expand. 
Bonus round: I’m making a production run of custom coasters for an event with about 15 per sheet of PG. Despite having all engraves the same color and the cuts a different color, the GF is making one engraving pass with SVG icons, another with an expanded vector, then follows up with the cut. The product looks right, but the double engraving pass is causing engrave times of 3 hours per sheet. Would love to cut that down. Already decreased LPI to lowest acceptable values. Suggestions?
Hope all is well your way! Stay safe and dry. 
Is the vector engrave the reason for the second pass? I would suggest turning the vector fills into a raster and combining that with the raster image in something like Photoshop. Then you would just have one image for engraving per coaster.
(You might have to just run a half sheet at a time though - the UI tends to hang up on multiples. If you’ve got it working now, even if it takes a lot longer, it might be easier than trying to run a full sheet of coasters with just one pass on the engraving.)
Thanks! This did the trick, and is an easy conversion within Affinity Design. Still have to enter the engrave settings 15 times, but plenty of time during a 3-hour print. May have under-priced this job. 
If you set up one copy of the item in AD, then duplicate it within the GFUI, you won’t end up with all the individual engrave operations to assign settings to. The downside is you lose any precise placement of items in relation to each other, which is easier to maintain in design software.
Or if you combine the engrave objects within AD, you won’t have as many operations to make settings. Combining all 15 items might give you fits with the GFUI not wanting to handle that much info at once, but maybe set it up in multiples of 3 or 5 will save you some time.
5 was the magic number. One design took 42 min per job, the other is running 51. Trogdor has been running continuously since 9 am without a hiccup. 4 hours left to go. 
