Hello all!
After closing down my shop a couple years ago I've not had much occasion to use my Redsail M500 engraver. It's a 60w 300mm×500mm table engraver running the original MCPsomethingorother controller. I bought it second hand in 2013 or so and used it quite a bit. One issue I had is there is an error in the controller- if I send a file too big, like a raster job that takes up more than half the bed, it gets half way through and stops. It stops. No warning, no beep, just freezes. That was annoying.

So, I'm looking for an upgraded controller. One thing I would REALLY like is 3d function. I used to use am Epilog pretty extensively and the 3d function was amazing.

I would like something reliable without spending an arm and a leg- wouldn't we all? What has changed? Back when I was looking into this, the LightObject X7 controller was just about to hit the market and it was supposed to be the bees knees. Now I'm seeing for less money I could get a Cohesion3d controller and Lightburn, a combo that looks like it would do the 3d rastering I want. I see there's been some new Ruida controllers put out that look nifty, or there's something about going open source with garbl or gobeldigook or something like that...

What say you? I do like the idea of going Gcode with it rather than the DSP systems, if it's a reliable option. Less proprietary and I may be able to take advantage of my Vectric Aspire for some design work. I have a small 24x36" CNC running a Gecko540 I use now, so while I'm not a scratch coder in Gcode, I can get around a bit. The DSP systems in the laser controllers are greek to me, so gcode would be pretty cool, if nothing else from a debugging perspective if I have an issue.

So... let's say around $300, less is more of course. What would you do today?

Thanks everyone!

-Michael