The museum where I volunteer is acquiring a new Epilog Mini 24-40, which is supposed to arrive next week. Among the volunteers my experience comes closest to having any relation to cutting and engraving (eg I work with wood and sometimes plastic), so it looks as though I'm going to become its "mother". Perhaps for better, the museum will still be closed for the foreseeable future, so I'll have as much one-on-one time with it as I need to figure it out. I expect to be here frequently with questions, as I've never used anything like it before. I'm looking forward to it!
First question, anything I need to know about a computer to drive it? The director wants to repurpose a 10 year old machine to run it, any likely problems with that? The specs say it works with Win XP through 10; is one of those better than another? I assume we'd just as soon avoid abandoned software like XP. (I'm a Mac/UNIX guy and worked with XP and Win 7 when forced, I have 8 running on VMWare on my laptop for the odd program that needs Windows, I've used 10 enough to know I don't "get" the interface at all-- I was able to make prior versions look like Win95 which I got along fine with, but haven't found out how to do that with 10.)
Perhaps related, the specs say the laser can be driven either via USB or Ethernet. Any reason to choose one over the other? For most things I have had better luck with Ethernet, is that going to be true for this unit?
I'm told that Illustrator will generate the required graphic files. That's easy as I've used it a lot, albeit on the Mac. Is it true?
Thanks! (and TIA for your patience)