Redsail x700 co ordinates running backwards???

[Callum Angus]

I am trying to get to grip with my new X700 and I am getting there but I cannot seem to figure out how to switch my x axis round...

I have the machine set as standard so the laser is at the top right of the bed and my onboard display reads PX: 0.000 and PY: 0.000 BUT on my Auto Laser program the X:0 and Y:0 is in the top LEFT of the page that my design is on... It seems that the bed is running Right to Left on the X axis and Auto Laser is running Left to Right...???

First thing... Can somebody please help me switch this round so both X:0 / Y:0 are in the top left corner on my cutter and on my design package.

and second is this Auto Laser any good, or come somebody suggest another free program I can use please.

Thank you all for all of your help!
Callum :)

[Steven Yates]

On the right panel in AutoLaser, click the Mac Info button, then click Format Param. In this box, make sure Mac reset position is Right-top, and in the Pitch dot section click the top right circle.

AutoLaser is just fine to interface with the laser. I'm not sure if you have many other options for that. It is kind of clunky in that pressing Enter often is not the same as clicking OK, and there are some other frustrations. I rarely do any drawing in AutoLaser itself other than a quick square or circle for a test cut, but I do use it to create an array when I am cutting multiples of a piece. It actually has a decent set of drawing tools, but it just doesn't have a great feel to work in.

For free drawing software I used Inkscape. Getting drawings from Inkscape to AutoLaser was a multi-step process but it worked. A lot of my "drawing" is actually done by editing SVG files in a text editor, or writing Java code that generates the SVG for me. SVG is human readable/editable, and it is Inkscape's native file format so worked for me. AutoLaser will not work with SVG files directly though.

I tried saving to AutoCAD format from Inkscape but the size in AutoLaser was way off (by about a factor of 100 I think). There may be a way to correct for that but I did not explore it much. AutoLaser saves files in PLT format so that seemed a more natural format to try to use. Unfortunately, trying to save as .plt from always crashed Inkscape for me. Maybe you'll have better luck.

Inkscape's HPGL save does work, and this is the same format as PLT, so renaming the file makes it loadable in AutoLaser. The HPGL will save everything as one color, but it will let you specify a pen number. So if I want to engrave and cut with multiple settings in one job I create separate drawings for each of the settings, open one in AutoLaser and then import the others on top of the first. You can double click each imported color in the Param section and modify the speed/power settings, or click on the colors there and then choose one of the 256 colors at the bottom of the screen if you have created a set of standard speed/power settings.

One issue with importing multiple drawings is that any whitespace around your image is lost. AutoLaser will align the first non-white pixels along the top and right edges of your drawing with the top right corner of the image window. Although it will appear on the screen as if an image is aligned to the top left, if you import an image on top of another you will see that it is really top right. For example, if you have a drawing with two different sized squares, one centered in the other and you export the squares as two separate PLT files, if you load one and then import the other you will have two squares sharing a common top right corner rather than being centered.

So if you want multiple drawings to line up correctly when imported, they need a common reference at the top right corner. This could be accomplished by making a black pixel in the top right corner of both drawings. I generally have a line along the full width of the top edge of the drawings, once I import all layers into AutoLaser I will drag a rectangle to select all copies of that line and delete it. I can then save the image from AutoLaser so I can load it as just one file the next time I need to run it again.

Inkscape's HPGL save actually anticipates behavior like this and adds a small unseen object to the exported file for this purpose, but it puts it in the lower left corner, which doesn't help with AutoLaser's alignment. Maybe there is a way to change that, but I did not find it. You'll want to remove this extra object in AutoLaser before cutting because it affects the size of the image sent to the laser. Even though nothing will be cut at that point, it makes the Range key on the panel and the Border View button in AutoLaser useless because it will trace a larger area than the actual work image.

I'm mostly using Corel Draw now. Its export to PNG works fairly well, no need to rename to get the correct extension, and multiple colors can export at once. AutoLaser also has a plugin for Corel Draw that lets you move the file directly into AutoLaser. AutoLaser needs to not be running when you run the plugin, and the plugin modifies your drawing in Corel before opening it in AutoLaser, which I don't care for. I prefer not to use the plugin.

Sorry for the rambling post. A lot of it may not make sense until you actually try things for yourself but I wanted to give you something to look at when you run into inevitable issues.