ULS driver weirdness with M-300 - or is it Inkscape?

[Matt Barinholtz]

Howdy, all!

Can't say how much this forum has helped me get to this point. Two years of lurking, research, and saving my pennies. Thanks very much to all.

I just set up my "new" M-300, paired it with an old but perfectly serviceable laptop running XP, downloaded and installed what seem like perfectly good drivers from a site recommended in this forum, am running inkscape set up with correct color palette and page size, all with a paralell to paralell cable connected.

Created a simple hello world file - a 2" x 2" blue square, with a .003" black outline. Black is set to vector cut, blue is set to engrave at 20% power, and the colors are mapped correctly.

Challenge comes when I send the file to engrave - error after error, sometime the file will spool when the M -300 is shut down and restarted (seems to jump in before the spool times out)...

When I was able to get just an .003" outline version to spool, it treated it like a raster image. Rastered it correctly, at right size - but wanted to cut...

Then tried text. Many printer errors later, got it to take the file, and it produced text that was compressed in the y axis, and overlapped. I thought my alignment was off, but after many chex, determined that this ain't a hardware issue...

Have tried several printer setting options - mainly between "print directly to machine" and print spooling. Should be able to spool, but doesn't seem to like to...

Have the option of trying a serial to USB cable. Also have the option of plugging in a mac running cdr x3 under paralells, and dumping the inkscape option. Would like to leave the xp laptop connected...my wife likes having the mac at home...

any suggestions?

thanks, all!

[Rodne Gold]

I recon just use Corel - most laser drivers are set up to use it..
You can DL a trial version of Corel to install on the existing puter from Corel Com..
(or use your mac version on it if you have all the serial nos etc)

[Mike Null]

I agree with Rodney. Use Corel and use the serial/usb cable rather than the parallel cable.

[George D Gabert]

It is my understanding that anything that needs to be cut needs to be set at hairline or it will raster.

GDG

[Scott Shepherd]

You said you had your colors mapped correctly, but make sure that they color is set to raster or vector. Make sure black is set to vector and blue is set to raster, along with making sure the blue you have in your color palette is the same blue that matches the blue in the color mapping. Did you install the ULS color palette?

More than once I have had the raster/vector settings wrong and it'll do just as you mentioned, it will try and raster what you wanted vectored.

[Rob Bosworth]

Buy CorelDRAW. It is cheap and will remove a lot of your guess work.

[Dan Hintz]

"Cheap" is relative, but that's a story for another time.

I have found Inkscape to be quite capable in most areas, but one major area I've found it to be short in is text. It requires me to convert all text to Curves before it will print properly to the ULS driver. This could be an issue with the ULs driver, but I never bothered to track down the root cause... the fact that it works with CorelDRAW, however, leads me to reasonably conclude it is Inkscape.

Matt, as far as the changing image size goes, make sure the Inkscape image has its page size set to the ULS bed size. Inkscape has become infamous (at least to me) of resetting certain settings (I want everything in terms of inches, it insists upon pixels time and time again). Make sure the bed size in the ULS driver is set to the max limits.

[Matt Barinholtz]

All -

Thanks a bunch - great advice!

Scott - will double check hex, and post a correct Inkscape Universal palette if I'm able to get it to work in my situation...may be of use to others.

Dan - Glad to know that there's a inkscape user out there...holding out hope that it will be a viable option... the outline issue makes sense. Had that problem with some other software parsing text on a C200...the classic "convert to outlines" issue...will try to implement your recommendation. I've set vector lines to .003, should they go smaller? As you're familiar, here's no "hairline" option...what do you recommend?

I'm also going to try to print from Acrobat, Word to see if the software is having the difficulty, instead of the drivers. If this is a dumb move, advise.

Wanted to clarify - have a >parallel< to usb, not serial to usb (isn't serial too restrictive for large files and a rolling buffer?)

Still trying to locate the problem with the driver, will try CDRx13, which I own, using parallels on macbook this evening.

maybe I'm running the wrong driver version? Downloaded the M series XP/2000 driver here:
http://www.engravingsys.com/members/drivers.htm

If this isn't the right place, please let me know!

- Matt

[Dan Hintz]

No specific recommendation other than I would draw everything with 1mil lines, not 3mils... I can't think of any reason not to go with the minimum other than to possibly confuse drivers that expect 1mil. I recall reading something in the past about a few mils above 1 being okay, but why gamble for no return?

[Matt Barinholtz]

All -

Thanks again - Steve shared some current drivers, and that seems to have helped a lot...the rest, as all of you noted, is Inkscape. Not great printer driver support...files exported to .pdf and engraved from Acrobat worked much better than out of native program.

Isn't it always the case that you dive into the unknown right out of the box, when common sense says go with the trusted way of doing things...oh well, open source does not equal no headache...

You guys are great. Thanks for all!

[Dan Hintz]

...the rest, as all of you noted, is Inkscape. Not great printer driver support...
Not sure what you mean there... the print driver itself is offered by ULS, not Inkscape, so if there are any problems with the driver itself you can look towards ULS. Inkscape provides an open link for anyone to drop in a print driver, the same as any other program out there. The text issue mentioned earlier is the only problem I'm aware of, and it's easily worked around.

[Rob Bosworth]

IF you buy your CorelDRAW on-line, rather than in Best Buy, it is cheap. You can buy almost any version of CorelDRAW for less than $ 100. If you have a PC with even Paint Brush on it, all you have to do is buy the upgrade version of CorelDRAW. I don't know where all of these un-registered copies of CorelDRAW come from, but most of them will allow you to register your CorelDRAW with Corel.

Yes, it is more expensive than a package of sanding paper. But it is a tool that is being used with a machine that cost most of us more than $ 1,000. Sometimes much more than $ 1,000.

[Dan Hintz]

IF you buy your CorelDRAW on-line, rather than in Best Buy, it is cheap. You can buy almost any version of CorelDRAW for less than $ 100. If you have a PC with even Paint Brush on it, all you have to do is buy the upgrade version of CorelDRAW. I don't know where all of these un-registered copies of CorelDRAW come from, but most of them will allow you to register your CorelDRAW with Corel.

Yes, it is more expensive than a package of sanding paper. But it is a tool that is being used with a machine that cost most of us more than $ 1,000. Sometimes much more than $ 1,000.
Yes, if you don't mind using illegal software... but if that's the case, why not go all out and just download a cracked copy from a torrent site?

Any copy of CorelDRAW sold for the purposes of use in a business will cost you close to $400 (Corel usually has sales running for high-$300's). The stuff you purchase from the net for <$100 is either overstock (which is supposed to be sold with specific hardware and can often be limited in functionality/tools... no clipart, or VBA is disabled, etc.) or educational versions. To suggest a fully functional copy of CorelDRAW that does not violate their EULA could be had for anything less than $350(ish) without some Corel-sanctioned sale is the same as suggesting breaking the law.

This has been covered several times before, and I remember posting a number of detailed answers directly from Corel's website on the legality of such software. Personally, I don't care if everyone runs illegally, that's their call... but don't lead them to believe doing so is perfectly acceptable.

[Rob Bosworth]

Dear Dan, you are right. I just checked with Corel and they confirmed your message. I had checked with them a few years ago, and the tech told me we could just use the upgrade version. I guess they have cracked down since then. Thank you for pointing that out.