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Thread: How easy is it to switch software in Chinese laser?

  1. #1

    How easy is it to switch software in Chinese laser?

    I have a J. Weike L6040N (60W) Chinese laser. Before I start getting replies to this post slamming Chinese lasers or telling me I should be a domestic one and I wouldn't be asking this question, I LOVE my laser, it works great and I am fine using LaserCut software! I am just exploring whether or not there is a better alternative that's easy to switch over to.

    One of the issues I have is I use an old PC laptop, 32bit with Windows 7 because the LaserCut software requires it. It doesn't help that my laptop is garbage. I have other laptops, including a PC version with current Windows installed and a newer Macbook Pro. But I can't use those with LaserCut because it's PC based and requires 32bit (so Windows 7).

    I have briefly looked at LaserBurn and LaserWeb. The latter is open source I believe. LaserBurn offers both Mac and PC versions and suggests it may work for my machine but I'm not sure. I know I can 'change the controller' as their site suggests, to one that does work with their software if by chance the controller I have doesn't, but that sounds tricky and I'd rather not break what ain't broken. So I'm hoping to find something I can switch to seamlessly that will allow me to use one of my faster laptops (PC or Mac) and that won't screw up my laser and/or require any hardware/controller changes.

    Anyone have any thoughts or any experience with this?

  2. #2
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    I have a Chinese laser, about 2 years old runs just fine on Windows 7 Pro which is 64 bit. The Chinese software for the Laser is really just a means to send something you have created in say Corel Draw and Exported to your Laser Software and to feed the machine a file via USB. Thats the way it works.
    Last edited by Bill George; 12-03-2018 at 3:47 PM.
    Retired Guy- Central Iowa.HVAC/R , Cloudray Galvo Fiber , -Windows 10

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Bill George View Post
    I have a Chinese laser, about 2 years old runs just fine on Windows 7 Pro which is 64 bit. The Chinese software for the Laser is really just a means to send something you have created in say Corel Draw and Exported to your Laser Software and to feed the machine a file via USB. Thats the way it works.
    Bill, with that said, what's stopping you from using, say, Job Control, to drive another laser? Is it coded a certain way to prevent it?

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jacob John View Post
    Bill, with that said, what's stopping you from using, say, Job Control, to drive another laser? Is it coded a certain way to prevent it?
    Huh? Who said anything about Job Control and this is a Chinese laser, no Job Control here.
    Retired Guy- Central Iowa.HVAC/R , Cloudray Galvo Fiber , -Windows 10

  5. #5
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    Adam - I'm not positive but depending on your controller model - Ruida? Leetro? Etc. - you might be able to use Lightburn - it's brilliant now and improving every day - there is a free trial at https://lightburnsoftware.com/pages/...before-you-buy - and it runs on win7- 32 or 64 just fine; also runs on Mac and linux. Has great support answered in English on their Facebook page almost instantaneously - It will become the only software you need before too long - I'm already doing 95% of my design work in it -only rarely needing to get back to Coreldraw - also has built in trace feature which is as good as vector magic was - and their photo dithering setup gives me results as good as Photograv - albeit with more tweaking and experimenting sometimes involved, and it's only $80.00 for a license with 1 year of updates. Just ascertain what controller you are using and see if they support it - if not they are adding to the list of supported controllers regularly.
    Bill Carruthers, Rarotonga, Cook Islands
    Shenhui G350- 60W; + Hengchunyuan 1300x900 100W EFR , CNC router 40x60, Lightburn fan, RDCam , Coreldraw 12, Photograv 3, Scroll saw, and not enough time to play with all of them!

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Bill George View Post
    Huh? Who said anything about Job Control and this is a Chinese laser, no Job Control here.
    Haha, I guess I could have been clearer. It was a hypothetical. If the software is simply a path to the laser, would it be possible to use another software than EZCad to drive the laser? Like light burn for instance

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Carruthers View Post
    Adam - I'm not positive but depending on your controller model - Ruida? Leetro? Etc. - you might be able to use Lightburn - it's brilliant now and improving every day - there is a free trial at https://lightburnsoftware.com/pages/...before-you-buy - and it runs on win7- 32 or 64 just fine; also runs on Mac and linux. Has great support answered in English on their Facebook page almost instantaneously - It will become the only software you need before too long - I'm already doing 95% of my design work in it -only rarely needing to get back to Coreldraw - also has built in trace feature which is as good as vector magic was - and their photo dithering setup gives me results as good as Photograv - albeit with more tweaking and experimenting sometimes involved, and it's only $80.00 for a license with 1 year of updates. Just ascertain what controller you are using and see if they support it - if not they are adding to the list of supported controllers regularly.
    I checked with Lightburn and it looks like I have a Leetro controller. They don't support Leetro yet but will be. It could be up to a yead but that's fine. I'll wait. I tried their demo on my Mac and while I couldn't do it online (connected to my laser), offline it was terrific!

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jacob John View Post
    Haha, I guess I could have been clearer. It was a hypothetical. If the software is simply a path to the laser, would it be possible to use another software than EZCad to drive the laser? Like light burn for instance
    EZCad is for a fiber laser.
    Retired Guy- Central Iowa.HVAC/R , Cloudray Galvo Fiber , -Windows 10

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Adam Less View Post
    One of the issues I have is I use an old PC laptop, 32bit with Windows 7 because the LaserCut software requires it. It doesn't help that my laptop is garbage. I have other laptops, including a PC version with current Windows installed and a newer Macbook Pro. But I can't use those with LaserCut because it's PC based and requires 32bit (so Windows 7).
    Typically, when someone says "requires 32-bit", the actual application software could care less, but there are no 64-bit drivers available for the hardware interface. Not (usually) a problem for USB, but there are still odd bits of controller hardware out there that use parallel interfaces, for which 64-bit drivers don't exist. (Or at least didn't exist last I checked.)

    Is that what's going on here? If so, it would likely require a controller upgrade to fix.
    Yoga class makes me feel like a total stud, mostly because I'm about as flexible as a 2x4.
    "Design"? Possibly. "Intelligent"? Sure doesn't look like it from this angle.
    We used to be hunter gatherers. Now we're shopper borrowers.
    The three most important words in the English language: "Front Towards Enemy".
    The world makes a lot more sense when you remember that Butthead was the smart one.
    You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much ammo.

  10. #10
    Virtual machine...

    I have a old Dell Precision T5600 with an 8-core cpu, 32gigs of ram running 64bit Win7 Enterprise...

    My GCC Explorer requires a 32bit computer for its driver. I put a 32bit XP virtual machine on the Dell (via VirtualBox, NOT the built-in MS version), and the driver works just fine on the XP. I allotted the VM 5 gigs of ram, and it's stupid fast.

    You could also just use a 32bit Win7 as the VM...
    ========================================
    ELEVEN - rotary cutter tool machines
    FOUR - CO2 lasers
    THREE- make that FOUR now - fiber lasers
    ONE - vinyl cutter
    CASmate, Corel, Gravostyle


  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kev Williams View Post
    Virtual machine...

    I have a old Dell Precision T5600 with an 8-core cpu, 32gigs of ram running 64bit Win7 Enterprise...

    My GCC Explorer requires a 32bit computer for its driver. I put a 32bit XP virtual machine on the Dell (via VirtualBox, NOT the built-in MS version), and the driver works just fine on the XP. I allotted the VM 5 gigs of ram, and it's stupid fast.
    (scratches head) Ok, I'll bite: what does a 32-bit machine (real or virtual) do with >4GB of RAM?
    Yoga class makes me feel like a total stud, mostly because I'm about as flexible as a 2x4.
    "Design"? Possibly. "Intelligent"? Sure doesn't look like it from this angle.
    We used to be hunter gatherers. Now we're shopper borrowers.
    The three most important words in the English language: "Front Towards Enemy".
    The world makes a lot more sense when you remember that Butthead was the smart one.
    You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much ammo.

  12. #12
    I use Light Burn and it's not bad. I wish it had a few more features but I use Corel and import files to Lightburn. I never used LaserCut that came with my G Weike

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Lee DeRaud View Post
    (scratches head) Ok, I'll bite: what does a 32-bit machine (real or virtual) do with >4GB of RAM?
    probably nothing, it's just where I set the slider -- but it is stupid fast, everything it does is instantaneous, unlike every other computer I own.
    ========================================
    ELEVEN - rotary cutter tool machines
    FOUR - CO2 lasers
    THREE- make that FOUR now - fiber lasers
    ONE - vinyl cutter
    CASmate, Corel, Gravostyle


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