New laser user...

[Martin Reynolds]

Just took delivery of a laserpro explorer II - only 30W, but that seems to be plenty for what I am doing. I mostly do cutting work in acrylic and PETG, but am moving towards other materials - exciting things like fish paper, for example. I also do stainless steel work, but contract that out to a 1.5kW industrial laser with a 16 foot bed.

I lean towards the technical side of things, so here's my contribution:

Exhaust blower power 600W
Exhaust blower power, gate closed, 300W
Laser power at max 650W

These are quite a lot lower than I was expecting. The blower peaks at 1600W when it starts, which will tend to upset breakers, but these things are relatively low power machines - at rest, the explorer is only 150W.

I am a CAD user and much as I appreciate corel draw, i would like to be able to work directly from Turbocad. So I have to figure that out, any ideas appreciated.

[Mitchell Andrus]

Welcome to the Creek. Ask anything - I'm amazed at the knowledge dump that follows a call for help for the toughest problems. New laserhead posting at 3:00am - hmmm, where have we seen this before?

See my thread on my vacuum hold down. I mainly cut veneers for furniture work. Fish paper, etc. will blow away if you don't vac it down to the table, and small pieces will fall into the standard .25" grid.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=38692

I have a Laserpro Spirit. I use Turbocad for other things, I find it wildly overpowered for running the laser and use Corel Draw instead.

Mitch

[Rodne Gold]

I can print to the laser directly from Autocad , so if you use a windows print driver , you should be able to print out of Turbocad.
It is far easier to export your Turbocad to Corel and work out of there. Turbocad V12 pro works seamlessly with Corel V3. Looking at the print driver using the mercury as a printer , it seems pretty much possible to use it directly to the Explorer. You would have to mess with page setup and colour properties etc.

[Martin Reynolds]

Thanks, gentlemen!

I'll have to think about a vacuum table. Not sure that fine grid will work as I already have trouble with reflections marring the sides of my parts. There is some air pressure hold down - as long as I am working a full piece of material.

I use Turbocad because I am also working with g-code machines, which can't handle Corel's output. All I get right now is emptry files, so I am suspecting a color problem. Thanks for the tips!