Versalaser and Mercury in one LAN

[Harry Radaza]

Finally decided to LAN the shop when we move in next door.

I have one versalaser VL300 50 watts and 2 Laserpro Mercury 25 watts. In the installation manual of the versalaser, I remember a part which instructs to open the .ini file of corel draw and change Font rasterizer to 0 from 1.

how does this affect lasering when I use that corel for the mercury. or the other way around, how does it affect printing in versa if I don't change this.

Just anticipating in case one of the workstations connected to a laser will break down or crash, maybe I could print from another workstation hence the need to clear this up.

also, is there any truth to the universal versalaser not being able to print from a network or from different pc's? I was told or read that somewhere. sorry for all the questions.

[Dave Jones]

I don't have a VersaLaser, but I think I remember reading somewhere that unlike most of the larger lasers, the Versa must remain in constant communication with the computer while lasering.

Most of the larger lasers receive the job from the computer and store it locally (or at worst it spools to the laser if it doesn't have enough memory) and those lasers have powerful enough internal computers to do all of the controlling of the X/Y table and laser source. But I believe the Versa has a more simplistic internal controller and requires the PC to do most of the controlling in real time. If so, that would make it difficult to network it reliably.

[Harry Radaza]

very true. I've had my pc crash and shut down and the versa stopped printing. so i guess printing thru a network is out.

but can anyone explain the font rasterizer change in corel draw for versalaser? how does this affect when printing to mercury with that change?

[Lee DeRaud]

If I remember correctly, that setting tells Corel to perform the font rasterization itself rather than having the "printer" (i.e. Versalaser) do it. It's roughly the same as the "send Postscript/TrueType fonts as bitmaps" setting in HP printer drivers.

That setting should work for anything since it assumes the device cannot do its own font rendering. At worst it increases the size of the file sent to the laser.

[Mike Mackenzie]

Harry,

The font rasterizer does not make any difference any more it did on the earlier models when using win 95/98. (thus the reason it is still in the set-up instructions) It has not made any difference when using win xp weather it is on or off.

The Versa laser can be networked although a pc must be present for the system. You can SHARE the computer through a server with other computers connected however you do not want to START the job from a shared computer. You want to actually start the engraving process from the computer that is directly connected to the Versa.

You can start the system from a remote computer but make sure that everything is ready to go then start it. We have had people start the system from a remote computer when someone else was loading the material. (the system does not know when the material is in the machine and ready to laser) so it is better to start the system from the computer connected to it.

[Patrick OBrien]

Harry,
MY take on the LAN situation and with your Versa (I know nothing of Versa's), is if it needs constant contact, put a print server (jet direct card) with sufficient RAM to buffer the job on the LAN to queue up the jobs.
I have 4 machines on my LAN, but my Epilog has never crashed when printing from multiple machines (16 Meg buffer built in, I think).
Just a thought, Print Servers are cheap these days. And I agree, multiple machines can improve efficiency.

[Harry Radaza]

thanks guys for all your help.

I think mike answered questions in my head best and will do that.

Now that the font rasterizer issue is settled I'm assuming I can do the following now :

* Print to the 2 mercury's from ANY workstation in the network.
* Only print to the Versalaser from the workstation directly connected to it.
* Have access to all files from any workstation

this set up will save us lots of down time.

With the number of clients growing and the number of orders increasing the question is how to organize the files in the server to make it logical and easy to find for anyone.

I'm thinking :

Server
>>>Admin
>>>>>..
>>>IT
>>>>>Downloads
>>>Production
>>>>>Gift Shop
>>>>>>>...
>>>Job Shop
>>>>>Clients
>>>>>>>..
>>>>>Engravers
>>>>>>>Artist 1
>>>>>>>Artist 2
>>>>>>>..
>>>>>Temp

Any ideas or suggestions ? How do you guys file yours for easy reference ?