Design Software? Trotec Speedy 400

[Aubrey Blalock]

Hi Folks,
I’m new to this forum and have a new 80W laser. As I also play with a CNC using Vectric Aspire software, how does one get those designs into JobControl? If that is not possible then I need to learn Corel Draw or Adobe Illustrator I suppose. Any guidance would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Aubrey Blalock

[Bill George]

Hi Folks,
I’m new to this forum and have a new 80W laser. As I also play with a CNC using Vectric Aspire software, how does one get those designs into JobControl? If that is not possible then I need to learn Corel Draw or Adobe Illustrator I suppose. Any guidance would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Aubrey Blalock

You will need to learn Corel Draw and I do not have a clue about Trotec but most have some kind of plug in that takes Corel or other files. The Vectric software also might be all you need? I use for my router and it can Export. I am surprised that they let you take a new machine home without any training. But lots of Trotec owners on here, and your going to love that machine.

[Aubrey Blalock]

Bill thanks for response. You are correct. My training is pending.

[Mike Null]

Aubrey

I agree with Bill. Get CorelDraw. You can send your files to Job Control from Corel. You should be able to import from Vectric then run the file with Corel.

There are a lot of Corel tutorials on youtube so buying a book or taking lessons is kind of a waste. There are a ton of guys here who can help with Corel as well.

[Aubrey Blalock]

Thanks Mike. I will do that. Appreciate the quick response.

[Doug Fisher]

Call Trotec to confirm which version of CorelDraw is best for interfacing with their software before you buy any drawing software. Job control may be able to work just fine with any version. I know that Chinese lasers with Ruida controllers need the full version of CorelDraw, NOT the student/home edition, or the macros to work with RDWorks will not work.

[Tony Lenkic]

If you can send a print job to desktop printer from your Vectric program thet Trotec JC will receive it and place it in print order.
Training will show you how to setup material date base with print and/or cut for materials you will work with.

In addition to Corel Draw I send many files from Xenetech software without any issue.

[Jeff Potts]

If you can send a print job to desktop printer from your Vectric program thet Trotec JC will receive it and place it in print order.

This- You may not need CD or AI at all. Theoretically Aspire should recognize the laser with JC as a printer. You'll likely have more flexibility and control over the file and elements using CD however.

[Keith Outten]

You should contact Vectric. It's my understanding that Vectric has or is about to make a module available for Aspire that will allow you to print directly to Job Control and print drivers for many other laser engravers. There is also talk about printing directly to rotary engravers as well. I believe there will be a small fee for the new module add-on for Aspire.

You can probably find our more about this new module from the Vectric Forum as well.

[Gary Hair]

You should contact Vectric. It's my understanding that Vectric has or is about to make a module available for Aspire that will allow you to print directly to Job Control and print drivers for many other laser engravers. There is also talk about printing directly to rotary engravers as well. I believe there will be a small fee for the new module add-on for Aspire.

You can probably find our more about this new module from the Vectric Forum as well.

I'm curious why you would need a special module to send a job to job control when it's just a printer driver?

[Aubrey Blalock]

Thanks Keith for heads up. I left a message on the Vectric forum for possible updates. Will reply here with any new info.
Aubrey

[Neville Stewart]

JCX will print an aspire created pdf directly.

[Aubrey Blalock]

You should contact Vectric. It's my understanding that Vectric has or is about to make a module available for Aspire that will allow you to print directly to Job Control and print drivers for many other laser engravers. There is also talk about printing directly to rotary engravers as well. I believe there will be a small fee for the new module add-on for Aspire.

You can probably find our more about this new module from the Vectric Forum as well.

Here is response from Vectric overnight:

Hi Aubrey,

I'm afraid that JobControl is an entirely closed software controller for your Speedy 400 and Trotec will not allow us to directly output to it. You will need to check with your Trotec dealer to confirm their preferred solution for 3rd party applications like ours, but typically proprietory laser controllers will use either an exported DXF for 2D cut-outs and marking or a greyscale image (potentially 16-bit, in our case) for 3D 'embossing'. These, and other, export options are available from from most of our software products (the 3D model output types are only available from Aspire).

I guess the rumour you heard was actually regarding open source controllers, such as grbl(https://github.com/gnea/grbl/wiki), which use a standard serial connection via a USB cable. In the next release of our software (V9.5) we will be including an optional little app called VTransfer. This will allow you to 'stream' toolpaths to these supported controllers without requiring additional 'middleware' - such as Universal G-Code Sender (UGS), Easel or chilipeppr - but I'm sorry to say that this isn't going to be useful in your case.

[Kev Williams]

"printing directly" to simple XYZ machines like most of my rotary tool machines seems pretty easy because of the limited variables, but I don't see any 3rd party software being capable of printing directly to a typical laser engraver...

Like Gary says, Job Control is simply a printer driver, and as such, it just seems logical to me that any program that can send a job to a basic ink type printer's driver and print it out, should be able to send that same job to any laser engraver's driver. What's onscreen could have originated from any source, it shouldn't matter; when you open Corel and start drawing boxes and triangles and putting text in them, what you just created isn't a DXF or an EPS or PDF or GIF or even a Corel file, it's not ANY kind of file until it's SAVED as such. Until then, it's simply printable graphic art than any print driver can print...

[Keith Outten]

I was at the Aspire event in South Carolina last April and listened to the lecture from one of the Vectric reps. Obviously I misunderstood what she said.