corel x7 to lasercut 5.3

[jud dinsmore]

i'm just getting started with this, but have run into a little snag.

i'm engraving on a variety of wood samples. i've designed a template in corel that lets me stack by bed side-by-side with 28 samples (5" square samples). the engraving is the same on each sample.

in corel, i make a 5" square box, added my text in the proper spots, and grouped all of this together. i copied and arranged them to fill up the overall space (set to match my laser bed). i then ungrouped everything and deleted the 5" square boxes. this leaves the text only, which is all i want the laser to engrave, arranged to engrave in the center of 28 different pieces.

i'm running to issues when i just want to engrave one, 5" square area like above. i'm only exporting a single box, but without the actual 5" box, so just the text. when i open it up in laser cut, it has been resized. this makes it significantly more difficult to line up, since i was just dragging it to the upper right hand corner and cutting.

anyway to get corel/lasercut to not resize my image? i could keep the box line, but then i would need to figure out how to not have the laser engrave that line.

[Kev Williams]

I'm assuming your text is black. I also assume your boxes are just outlines, if you haven't already, color them red. Then export everything. Once it's in lasercut, just turn off the red color, and the lines will disappear.

if you want to engrave just one box's test, just group that text and change it to blue (or anything but black or red). Now turn off the black, and only the blue remains. Enter your engraving settings, send to the machine :)

[jud dinsmore]

kev,

thanks for your reply. the boxes are black. i changed them to red and they look fine in corel. once i export them, they turn black, but seem to have a red highlight/extra line on the right and lower side. if i convert to bitmap in corel, it shows it like this.

unfortunately, i only see black in lasercut and it wants to engrave the outlined box.

any other ideas?

[Bert Kemp]

you only see black on the screen but how bout in the editing box on the right side in lasercut.there should be 1,2,or 3 places with a rectangle with a color in it.It will say cut or engrave depending on which is open, click on the color you want to cut and uncheck the box and it will not cut when you hit start.if thats hard to understand pm me I'll take some screen shots to show what I mean.

[jud dinsmore]

bert,

feel free to share some pictures.

i monkeyed around with it a little, but could never get a second color to export from corel and show up in lasercut. it looks good in corel, but shows all black in laser cut. for today, i created a red box (so i could select no output) in lasercut and eyeballed center my text inside this box. i imported just the text, so i didn't have to worry about the box i'd created in corel. it worked as advertised, but i'll need to find a better way since i really don't want to do my design work in lasercut.

[Bert Kemp]

to center text in the box put your text in the box then select the whole thing and hit ctr c then ctr e
busy this am but will try to post pic later

[Joseph Shawa]

I re-read your post. You already have the 5" pieces cut. So you need to make an array With the boxes in one color and the text in another. Then Cut the Boxes in cardboard to make a template to place your pieces. You have to know where the engraving is going to happen.
Then Engrave the letters without the cutting once the pieces are in Place

[Kev Williams]

Your red boxes should import into Lasercut as red, not black. Any workarounds shouldn't be needed...

It appears that for some reason, either Corel is exporting in all black, or Lasercut is importing in black only.

Experiment. Draw 8 boxes in Corel, paint them 8 different colors. Send them to Lasercut. You should get 8 different colors. If not, something is forcing "all black" or "cymk black".

If you get 8 different colors, then...??

[Scott Marquez]

I'm in the process of learning Coral myself.
Would you need to set color pallet to RGB, and line thickness to Hairline?
Scott

[Kev Williams]

Found this screenshot of 5.3 online. Towards the upper right is the color selector.
The graphic loaded shows 2 colors, a blue-gray and black....
352471

This is a screenshot of my Lasersoft used with my Triumph, it's a job I'm currently running. First, note that the basic interfaces of each are pretty much identical, and from what I've seen most Chinese laser software is based on this interface, then 'adjusted' by the different companies...
So, note that there's similar joysticks, and color choice options. In my program, I'm using dark gray (borders the engraving area), black, blue, green and red. Note that I have the dark gray and red colors turned off ("x" in the check box), while all other colors are checked "on". What engraves is ONLY what's visible, the black, blue and green...
352473

In this view, I've turned ON the red, and turned OFF the blue and green. So my red borders are now visible, and the blue and green are not. So now only the black would engrave and the red lines would run a vector cut- which I don't want obviously :)
352474

My point is, your red and black should import into your program as red and black, and the colors should show up in the color choice area. Clicking on the colors proper should take you to the 'engrave' menu where you choose whether the color is to be ENGRAVED, or CUT. Checking/unchecking the boxes makes them visible/engraveable, or NOT. Very simple. Or at least, it should be :)

[John Bion]

I very quickly gave up trying to export directly from CD to Lasercut 5.3 Just export as a .DXF and import into Lasercut 5.3 Then save your settings in Lasercut so that you end up with a set of settings for each substrate/job you do.
Also try keep a certain colour for a specific task across all your drawings; e.g.: Red = Cut, Blue = Kiss-cut, Purple = dark engrave, Yellow = light engrave etc, etc.
Once you have done this you just open your settings for the material you are working on, and import the new .dxf drawing and you have all your saved settings ready to run.
Hope this makes sense to you.
Try this method and see if it solves your problems before pulling your remaining hair out. Some people have managed to get the CD plug-in working others have not.

[Joseph Shawa]

How are you getting CD file to LaserCut?

[Bert Kemp]

save cd file as dxf and then import the dxf to lasercut

[Bert Kemp]

352481The boxes in red will cut the text in blk will engrave if you dont want to cut the box just uncheck it

[jud dinsmore]

gentlemen,

thanks for all of the responses. my corel won't export to .dxf so i'm exporting as .bmp into laser cut. my laser came with a computer with laser cut already installed. i'm designing on my computer in corel and using a thumbdrive to get it to laser cut. this is what was recommended to me by the previous owner and he cut some pretty elaborate stuff.

i'll give it another shot tomorrow. when i convert to bitmap inside of corel, the red outlined box turns to black after being red in design mode. maybe its just being a little buggy. i'll restart it and report back.

[Keith Cox]

gentlemen,

thanks for all of the responses. my corel won't export to .dxf so i'm exporting as .bmp into laser cut. my laser came with a computer with laser cut already installed. i'm designing on my computer in corel and using a thumbdrive to get it to laser cut. this is what was recommended to me by the previous owner and he cut some pretty elaborate stuff.

i'll give it another shot tomorrow. when i convert to bitmap inside of corel, the red outlined box turns to black after being red in design mode. maybe its just being a little buggy. i'll restart it and report back.

you don't export the file you save as file.dfx hope this helps
coxy

[Kev Williams]

Your Lasercut sees bitmaps pretty much as photographs, not vector graphics, this is why it's everything is black--

I'm not sure why your Corel won't export to DXF?
Here's a screenshot of the the procedure- first, note I grouped the 2 legend plates to export first,
then click the 'export button'... The 'save file as' dialog comes up... pick a folder to save to, and choose a file name...
then click on 'files of type' and choose "DXF Autocad", then click the 'export' button, and your DXF is now saved...
352515
-note below and partially hidden by the 'DXF' arrow, 'selected only' is checked, this means only the 2 plates I selected
will be exported, nothing else in the Corel window will export...

Now to go to your Lasercut, then locate and import the DXF you just saved...
I saved the above file as "0.dxf" (one of my 'default' names as I do this many times a day)-
note the plates show up in the preview screen...
352516

-only the plates I selected imported, all colors intact...
352517


I have a one-button macro that 'dumps' anything I select in Corel directly into my LaserCad program, so I never import DXF's-- this is actually the first time I've ever done it! :)

[Bert Kemp]

In Corel you save your design as a DXF you then open Lasercut 5.3 and IMPORT not export IMPORT the dxf file you just saved in corel. in lasercut you calculate then hit delete all then download current and the dxf file will load in to lasercut. Then you tell it which lines to cut and what to engrave.

If you try to import a bmp all you will be able to do is engrave it because it s a picture.Like Kev said a jpeg.

[Tony Lenkic]

Jud,

Tell us more about your Coreldraw. Is it Home & Student version? This may be the reason you can not export/import other types of files.
What happens is you hold down "CTRL" key and press "E" (short for export).

[jud dinsmore]

tony - that's the version i have and i cannot save or export to .dxf. i didn't know that going into it.

bmp seems to work fine. i haven't revisited getting the layout to work with multiple colors in corel, as i have made it work by designing the logo and text in corel, and created my boxes in lasercut.

[Joseph Shawa]

I have the student version of X6. Not a problem to export or save to .DXF

[Tony Lenkic]

Jud, try this......

When you have Corel file on the workpage go to "FILE / SAVE AS/ DXF-AutoCad" ---- give it a name and location you are saving it to (such as desktop).