New to lasers - software questions

[Mike Heidrick]

Hi Guys. I got a 50w chinese laser (blue white with rotary) yesterday from a guy local. Came with RD works and a Corel plugin.

What version of Corel (Draw I am guessing?) should I acquire? Is there any info you can direct me to?
I am enrolled in a local CC so I qualify for student discounts if that works to help?
What would you guys recommend I load and use?
Please and THANK YOU for any help or info.

[Brian Lamb]

Hi Mike,

Pretty sure a lot of guys are using old versions of Corel Draw, mine is X7 and I'm not having any issues, but I use a ULS laser with different software.

[Jacob Meged]

I'm also using X7, haven't really seen a need to upgrade. Just be careful with getting the Student Versions. Older student versions didn't support VBA, which might be what your plugin might need in order to work. I don't know if this is still the case with the latest CorelDraw 2019

[Kev Williams]

I use x3 and x4... x4 is a big upgrade over x3 , but mostly concerning menus for me- as in , the basic 'open' menu, x4 is expandable, x3 is not, and x4's 'open' takes advantage of win7's larger preview screen. Then there's the 'paper type/size' (table) menu, x3 is one big long menu, x4's menu has a 'favorites' menu incorporated, lots less scrolling. I wouldn't even USE x3, except for an anomaly with x4 in which imported DXF's bring in text that SHOULD be center justified, as LEFT justified, which requires tons of time to re-align it. I'm not sure why this is, and I've never found a fix for it. But x3 brings in ALL text justified correctly. Since about 70% of my jobs are supplied as DXF's, I use x3. Corel x5 may do that correctly, and I know x6 DOES-- but I'm a cheapskate, and for my purposes, any other upgrades are likely be negligible to me. The only operational difference I've found between x3 and x4 is the lack of 'draw table' in x3, which is handy for doing matrix name plate cuts and such...

My BIL has x6 and just loves it. But he does much more 'artistic' work than I do. Me, my customers do most of the artistic parts, I just do what it takes to make their art engraveable ... :)

[John Lifer]

I'm still using X7, want to probably upgrade next year... We'll see. But the Plugin to send direct to RDworks won't work with student versions X7 and earlier for sure. The EDUCATION version will, you might can get one of those, it is a full version not student crippleware. The plugin if you do it right, makes it easy to send direct to RDworks.

[Mike Null]

I have X7 but prefer to use X5.

[Mike Heidrick]

Time to find some X7 and RDworks tutorials now. Thanks for the advice.

[Mike Heidrick]

421843

My first cuts in acrylic. X7 and rdworks plugin.

[Julian Ashcroft]

Don’t forget to give Lightburn a try, as a replacement for RDWorks, it has a 30 day free trial. I used to use Inkscape a lot to design stuff, but am using Lightburn more and more for this.

[Steve Utick]

Don’t forget to give Lightburn a try, as a replacement for RDWorks, it has a 30 day free trial. I used to use Inkscape a lot to design stuff, but am using Lightburn more and more for this.

Second this recommendation. Don't waste your time with RDWorks. LightBurn is WAY more user friendly, less buggy and being actively developed. Give it a try!

[Jerome Stanek]

Second this recommendation. Don't waste your time with RDWorks. LightBurn is WAY more user friendly, less buggy and being actively developed. Give it a try!

It all depends on what you are doing. I tried lightburn and found that for what I do RDworks is just as good and I already have it.

[James Minick]

I use Everything from Inkscape, GIMP, AutoCAD, and Paint 3D, but I use a commercial sign software to produce the final image/vectors, then import to Lightburn.
Experiment and see what works for you and your style of business.

[Dennis Greffard]

I have pretty much all the recent versions of Corel x6, x8, 2018 and now 2019. I buy the yearly license that gives free upgrades..200ish a year I think it is. I just started with 19, but 18 was a vast improvement over the others. I use it for signmaking, laser engraving, graphics..etc... 2018 drives our Trotec 360 80w just dandy. Zero issues with files.

[Mike Heidrick]

I ended up buying lightburn and their camera. Its very awesome. I also have other software like inventor and aspire to make vectors. I imported a dxf from Aspire last night and just selected the lines and assigned the colors and speed/power accordingly. It worked out great.

also added a chiller (S&A CW-5200DH) and got the laser correctly vented and also on my shop air supply. Very happy.