Using Trotec's Job Control Software

[Gary Gunderson]

I was wondering if anyone with experience with Trotec's Job Control software (as well as other brands) can give me some tips and ways to think about the software.

I had been using a Universal machine for a long time -- while I was never a big fan of their software, I had gotten pretty used to it. Now, in switching over to a Trotec machine, there are some things that are a bit confusing to me and I was hoping someone here could give me a bit of an overview/theory/approach.

For example, here are a few things I've run into:

- Plates: Dumb question: what exactly is a "plate"? Does that just mean the bed of the laser?

- Moving the Lens Carriage: Is there a way to move the laser around by clicking with the mouse on the plate in the software? I see the little menu bar where you can type in the values, but I didn't see a way to use the mouse to click around.

- Test Run with Pointer: I would often start a job with the lid open on my Universal machine so only the pointer would run, so I could make sure I had my alignment set up right. Can you do this with the Trotec?

- Process Modes: I can not figure out the various "process modes". If I am just doing vector cuts, I would choose "Standard" and then also click "vector job"? Can I send a job with both engraving and cutting? Would that be "Standard" and not clicking "Vector job"? It looks "Relief" is how I think of engraving when I send something in grayscale, then what exactly is "Layer" mode?

- Multiples: I see that you can choose to lay out multiple iterations of the job, and it will tile them on the plate. Can you do that with an offset between the pieces?

- Material Settings: Is there another place you can edit the material settings? The interface is a bit clunky, and it would be nice if you could do that in a text document or elsewhere. I found another post on the boards here, that referenced some hidden files. Is that the only place they are located?

- Setting up a job: On the Universal machine, I was used to looking at the bed of the machine in the Universal software, as well as in the templates I used in various software programs. For example, if I was using a 32" x 18" machine, I would set up my drawing within a rectangle that size as well. Trotec's software doesn't seem to work that way. If I send over a file the same size as the bed, it pops up some warning box. It seems to prefer small drawings that you arbitrarily drag onto the bed. Is there a way to work with a drawing that references the full bed size? For example, if I am using a SP1500, can I create a CAD drawing that is 59" x 49" so I can think of the full bed size while drawing?

[Mike Null]

Gary

You have a lot of questions and I'll try to answer several and I'm sure others will chime in with answers as well.

A plate is used as a place to locate your engraving. You can create multiple plates and engrave them at one time if you choose. In my case since a lot of my engraving is laminated plastic which I buy in quarter sheets I set my page in Corel at 12x25" as a default so that every time I open Corel the page is there. I set a comparable size in Job Control. (see photo)

You can't move the laser with the mouse however you can move the drawing to the laser with the mouse.

In my materials file I have a test setting and I generally use transfer paper or scrap plastic to test.

You can adjust or create new material files within job control. These files are somewhat hidden but tech support will tell you how to locate and back them up.
To create or change settings click on the wrench setting that you see in Job Control. That will open a new window which will allow adding deleting or changing material files.

I use the standard process mode for virtually everything I do. My machine is used for business and I don't spend time with features I don't need. If you look at the materials set up you can see how by clicking on "engrave, cut, skip" you can change those settings as needed. I believe the relief mode is an effort at providing a 3d setting but I don't use it nor do I use the layer mode.

I've sent a pm with my phone number if you'd like to call.

[Scott Shepherd]

Gary, I feel your pain :) We have a Universal and bought the Trotec so the transition for me is very similar to yours.

I don't have a ton of time, and Mike's already addressed some of the issues, so I'll just add a little.

"Plates" is a term left over from rotary engraving. I honestly don't know why it's still around. Like you, the word "Plate" confuses me. Essentially, replace the word "Plate" with "Job" and it'll all make perfect sense, except for the fact that it considers the "Plate" the "Table" too. The advantage the Trotec has over the Universal is that if you have jobs that all use the same material, let's say for an example, you're making panel tags for electrical companies. The material is black/white plastic. You've got 4 customers that want tags. You can do your artwork in Corel (or whatever) and send the jobs to Job Control. Once you're in Job Control, you can drag and drop all 4 jobs onto the "table". So you'll have 4 different customers jobs, all running at the same time, just by dragging and dropping the files onto the table.

If you wanted to do that on a Universal, you'd have to copy and paste 3 of the jobs into the 4th job, and then send the file over like that. Also, that job would be set the way you sent it. On the Trotec, you can move the jobs all over the place and all over your material, live, so it gives you the ability to maximize your material usage in the Job Control, rather than having to figure it all out in a graphics package.

It's so funny that you said the materials database was "clunky". I was at a trade show last week and Trotec was there with their new Job Control "X", and I was looking at it and discussing it with a Trotec rep and my words exactly were that the current Job Control just seemed "clunky" :) It's very hard to describe, other than Clunky :)

I will say, from what I saw, Job Control "X" is going to change a LOT of things in the driver and how it works, just from what I saw. It's a major step in the right direction, in my opinion.

One thing you might want to look into is "markers". You can put markers down all over the table and drag and drop jobs to the markers, so if you need precision locations, that's a good method.

Also, when you send the job over, select "Minimize to Job" (or something like that) at the screen where it shows your file size. That'll make the job only as large as the graphic is and allow you to drag it all around the table. If you send the full size over, and it's a small graphic, you can't move it around at all. That's been a really hard one for me to learn (Thanks to Mike for explaining that one to me!).

[Mike Null]

Gary

Another thing is do is locate the red dot on a job, choose selected only, minimize to job size. Then I move the job to the marker/laser. If I'm doing multiple pieces I just position them under the red dot and press the repeat button on the machine.

[Randy Digby]

Hi Gary,
Not much time to reply but on the subject of multiples - there are different ways to do this - this is just one I use.

For instance:
You have a part that is 1" x 3" and you want to do multiples but with a space in between. If you want the space to be, say, 0.100", then when you select print - set the print size to 3.1" x 1.1" and the space with be a part of the print job.

Now when you place the job at the point of origin, be sure the job is selected and then press CTRL+D and it will duplicate the job each time you make that key press. Since the spacing is part of the print job, you don't have to deal with the spacing. You can move and place each job separately to meet your needs. Be sure all jobs are selected and the green arrow GO.

[Gary Gunderson]

Thanks for all the information so far -- sorry for the slow response, but I wanted to test a few of the suggestions out today first before getting back on here.

- That is nice how the drawing snaps to the laser position. And now that I see you can position the pointer and drop a marker or type in values for a marker and then use that, I can see the potential. Now if only I could figure out how to adjust the zoom settings for my mouse so I could actually zoom in and see how things look. With my scroll wheel it jumps in about 25% increments, which goes from tiny to too far immediately.

- Mike: It looks like Standard does do pretty much everything. From the picture, it appeared that you couldn't engrave a gradient along the grayscale spectrum. It appeared to me that Standard gave you one depth of engraving, and Relief allowed for variation. Well, after some trial and error, I determined that "Standard" allows for a gradient and "Relief" crashes my software. Universal's software had a lot of odd settings for rubber stamps and whatnot, and I learned to just ignore those. The "Relief" setting looked like it may be helpful, though. However, it appears to be evil.

- Calling it a "job" instead of "plates" would make much more sense. They use the term plate, but don't really explain the origin, so thanks for the history lesson. I was thinking maybe it had to do with printing or something, where you would get everything set up on a plate beforehand, and then move it to the machine. Once you consider it a "job", then it makes sense why you would have multiple plates, or would want to save them. The plate/job thing is what is going to take some getting used to. I am so used to drawing to the size of the machine, as opposed to dragging the drawings around. The reason I liked drawing to the size of the machine was that I could use the accuracy and speed of the software to lay things out. I think that is much quicker -- for me anyway -- then moving the laser around, and then dragging the drawings to the pointer.

[Michael Kowalczyk]

not sure if someone else said it but "OUTLINE" will run the outline of the job so you can check the position with out the laser on but lid must be down. I use F8 all the time but you can also use your cursor to snap to. Plates are what you save a job as when you have it laid out and want to repeat it some other time. It goes to the archive file but you can save it where you want. I am excited to see the new job Control X is finally out. I like what they did in the material settings so far from what i have seen on the Website. I hope the sorting in the job Que will be more efficient and it doesn't load all jobs in que when you boot it up.

[Michael Kowalczyk]

Gary, one quick thing is if you are engraving on a sheet that will be cut and or marked that the software scans the job looking for all engraving first. So if you have an engraving down at the bottom it will take 10-20 seconds before it actually starts engraving. I always try to push the engraving to the top left or closest to the top so it engages it quickly.

[Gary Gunderson]

Ooh, I hadn't seen that "Outline" option -- that sounds really helpful. With the Universal machine, I used to just sorta click roughly at the edges of a given drawing, and then see where the pointer ended up. If that didn't work, I would run the job with the lid open, but that might mean all the artwork would run. I'll have to try the outline option.

I'm not in front of the machine now, but am curious what F8 does?

I just dug around on the website and found the images of the Job Control X you must be referring to -- that screenshot of the material database looks much better. I really wish I had that now instead of learning on this version.

Speaking of the material database, is there a setting somewhere I can adjust so I don't have to hit "More" every time if I am using more colors than the black, red, blue basic colors?

[Mike Null]

Gary

The reason I default to 12" x 25" is so that I can position the job in Corel as I do the art and then just send it to the engraver. I believe that is the same thing you'd like to do except to use the table size.

[Scott Shepherd]

I am so used to drawing to the size of the machine, as opposed to dragging the drawings around. The reason I liked drawing to the size of the machine was that I could use the accuracy and speed of the software to lay things out. I think that is much quicker -- for me anyway -- then moving the laser around, and then dragging the drawings to the pointer.

You can certainly do that. That's how I do it currently, most of the time. My corel page size is the same size as my "plate" in Job Control. Something like 28.something x 17.070" and that's what I use a fair amount of the time. Having the Universal and the Trotec, still has some mental blocks on for me. When I need to move something around, or if there's reason for it, I'll send it over with the same page sizes shown above and "Minimize to Job" or whatever that box says and then I can do what I want with the small file, move it around, etc.

I think it's capable of so much more than I currently use it for, but I do think it requires a serious rethinking of how you process jobs, and I'm not quite ready to do that. I do know I'd do things a lot different if I wasn't using 2 different brand lasers. Whatever I do on one needs to be setup so it'll work on the other with little effort.

[Mike Null]

Yeah, I used to work with 2 Epilogs and a Universal and that will test you.

[Amie McGee]

Hi Gary,

Looks like your fellow Trotec users are doing a great job at answering your questions. This forum is a great resource. I am the Director of Customer Service at Trotec Laser, Inc. and want to make sure that you are aware that our technical support team as well as your local sales rep is also available to help. Feel free to give us a call at 734-484-3260.

[Mark Sipes]

My corel page size is the same size as my "plate" in Job Control. Something like 28.something x 17.070" and that's what I use a fair amount of the time. I'll send it over with the same page sizes shown above and "Minimize to Job" or whatever that box says and then I can do what I want with the small file, move it around, etc.



So If I read your post correctly. If you need to make a 1" x 3" name tag you make the Corel page 28 x 17 and place a 1 x 3 tag with cut lines on that file page and then send it to the Trotec as a full sized plate? What about a job that has 25 - 1 x 3 plates same process? Job control assumes the job size ( 1"x3") is the cut out size and if there are 25 pages to the file. you get 25 1 x 3 jobs sent to the laser which you then just drop to the "plate" ... I guess I would assume Universal software was Clunky from this end also...

[Mike Null]

Mark

I set my plate to the quarter sheet size and let Corel control what is sent. I usually send a full page of tags which is 77 pieces for me. I just send it once regardless of the number of tags.

[Michael Kowalczyk]

Hey Guys if you can do a print screen capture and post it here of how you set up your plates. I do it a lot different and want to see if we can maybe help each other speed it up.
Mike...If I ran 77 tags that were all the same 1" x 3" my plate would be 1.1" x 3.1" and I would just load it as a single item and then position multiples. Then use the vector optimization. I run job estimate on both to see how much I save when optimizing the job.

I have never minimized my plate in the 9+- years I have had the laser. Guess what I will be doing later???????????

****TIP**** when no engraving is needed make sure you have a material setting set up for that. I use Black for engraving, Red for Marking, Desert Blue for interior cuts and Blue for perimeter cuts. I copy the settings, rename it to 3color setting and then turn off black. It will save you a lot of time because the engraver is not searching for the black in the job. Just thought I'd post this in case someone doesn't currently do it that way.

Hope this helps and ...

[Scott Shepherd]

Mark, I don't think that's what I'm saying :)

Here's what I have- I have my table size in CorelDraw set as the default page size for a new document. If I have a 1" x 3" name tag and I want to send it over, I'd place it anywhere on the sheet in Corel, and when I select "print", I'd select "Minimize to job". In job control, the job shows up as a 1" x 3" job which I can move around anywhere I want it.

If I have 24 of them (3 rows of 8 for ease of explaining), then I'd do the same thing. I'd send it over and the job would go into job control as a 24" x 3" job, which I could move around anywhere I wanted in job control as a 24" x 3" job.

[Michael Kowalczyk]

Hey Amie,
Time to get that number (posts:5) on the top right of your post up to the triple digits :eek:.
Good to see you online.

[Michael Kowalczyk]

Scott...If they are all the same tags...why not make the page just slightly larger than the original so it has a cut border built in to it. example... a 1" x 3" tag put on a 1.1" x 3.1" page in corel. Then print it to Trotec and use the same size page, 1.1" x 3.1", to make your job. Then if you have a scrap piece that is not 24" x 3", like a 12" x 12" you can place them to fit and drag them if needed.

[Scott Shepherd]

I don't do it that way because the few times I tried (and believe me, I tried) it didn't end well. I have a customer that has their own product lines and we make a number of things for them. They'll order 100 at a time, all the same of that part. I thought it would great to make one part and then duplicate the part in job control. It didn't work well for me at all. I don't remember the issue, but I do recall scraping the entire concept. My plan was, since many of them are made from the same material is to just leave each part in the queue and then I could just drag them over and make up my own job, which might consist of 5 different parts. It took me far longer to try and make it all happen than it would if I just did it in Corel. Now if it were just a few, I'd probably do it that way, but it's a lot easier for me to copy from 1 up to 100 in corel than it is for me to drop 100 plates on the master plate.

[Mark Sipes]

As I said before we all adapt to make it work best for our situations. and Yes I agree if I had a need for 100 of the same with repeats I would set up 1 job full size.

[Bruce Dillingham]

As advanced as this job control sw is, it's to bad Trotec doesn't have better documentation or videos to help people take advantage of it. I clicked on a few of the links in their sw blog on some of the mentioned features and they don't work. Maybe Amie can help out with this. Thanks

[Mark Sipes]

Have you reviewed the manual for the software?

[Gary Gunderson]

I have been pretty disappointed with the documentation -- I feel like there may be a bit lost in translation from the German to the English manuals. Either that or I'm fairly certain I saw somewhere that I am supposed to pump Neutrogena into the gas assist lines? Also, there was a drawing of the lens carriage setup that appeared to have a mistake in the assembly order that could damage the lens.

However -- as Amie noted -- their Support team is pretty awesome. They have fielded a barrage of questions from me -- I hope I haven't worn out my welcome there!

I will have to look into adjusting the drawing size as noted in a few posts above in order to get a buffer when tiling things. Another one of the reasons I tend to work in drawings representing the bed and try not to adjust that is based on my experience with the Universal software. For whatever reason, the Universal printer driver would do really odd things when you were sending files from multiple programs. The document size needed to match the bed size, but every now and then the document size would just go haywire and there was no rhyme or reason to what was controlling it. When that happened, I would often just uninstall the software and reinstall. So far I haven't run into problems like that with the Trotec software, but I have had a pretty light touch so far.

[Mark Sipes]

So you must be running a Speedy 500 since that machine has a 2 gas line air assist. the Neutogena is not for the air assist.. it is for you ..... to reduce your smile lines as you use the Trotec laser.

[Gary Gunderson]

Ok, I'm getting a lot better with this, and I'm trying to work around the quirkiness, but I'm running into some odd behavior that is bogging me down. So here's my latest question:

I have a file with no engraving in it at all. Let's say it is just a big 24" x 24" vector outline in red of a rectangle to cut. I send the job over using the "Standard" process, but I haven't selected "Vector Job". Even though there is no engraving in the file, the Trotec software seems to treat it as a giant 24" x 24" engraving at first. It will struggle a bit when placing the job, and when I first look at the estimated time in the duration sidebar, it will show something absurd like 360 minutes of engraving for the black artwork.

But there isn't any black artwork for engraving!

Then, if I hit "Update" in the estimate/duration sidebar, it will all get corrected. The black layer will go to 0 minutes, and the vector cut will revert to something normal like 40 seconds, for example.

So, what is going on here? Why wasn't the black layer at 0 to begin with? It seems that the "Vector Job" selection was added as a means to avoid this, but why is that option even needed if there isn't any engraving? It seems that the fact that this occurs is some sort of bug in the first place. Is it just treating the overall bounding box as a giant engraving until it gets into the software proper?

I'm hoping the new version clears this up, but I was wondering what exactly is going on here?

[Mike Null]

Make sure you have the red as your cut color in your material settings and that the outline is "hairline". The red should be rgb red.

[Gary Gunderson]

Hi Mike -- the red vector line is coming through fine, it just seems to think there is an engraving there at first. For example, if I send a blank drawing over, it will think the whole thing is an engraving at first. When I hit update, it seems to re-analyze the drawing (it says "computing contours) and then the estimate for the engraving will drop to 0.

In other words, anything I seem to send over with "Standard" process selected and "Vector Job" unselected, will at first appear to the software as a giant engraving. It isn't going to engrave that, nothing shows up as an engraving in the WYSIWYG, the vector lines in their respective colors are coming through fine, and it will correct itself once you hit update. It just seems odd.

I've attached two images showing what I mean -- the file is just a 24" x 24" rectangle. The first image is before I hit "update" and the second is after.

This isn't a huge deal, it just seems that the software is bogging down a bit on the file before it is updated.

242693242694

[Mark Sipes]

I have found the "Repeat Cut Lines" to be very helpful on that one job that just seems to be thicker then the standard. and you don't have to wait for the raster image to run again to get there...

[Mike Null]

I'm not sure what happens in this instance but it seems like the software's first read is as if the entire drawing gets engraved and cut then when you hit update it actually reads what is to be done and posts the correct estimated time. I've noticed that on mine as well and I assume that is why the update feature is there.

Mike

This is the layout I use for several of my customers. I buy quarter sheet lam. plastic and engrave logos, names and locations on these tags. I do several thousand a year and this is the best way I've found.

This takes 27 minutes with logos names and locations. The name is the only variable. My machine is 45 watts, if it were more powerful I could run these faster.