Greetings from sunny Florida

[Paul Abbott]

I just ordered an OMTECH MF1220-50 CO2 laser to keep my Ortur LM2 Pro company. I already have a GRBL license for LightBurn and will most likely pay the up-charge for the Ruida update. I downloaded RDWorks V8 8.01.54 and soon after downloaded the .57 version. I wanted to get an opportunity to take the software for a test drive. I've been using my 5.5W diode laser for almost a year now (with LightBurn) and I am gaining confidence in what I'm doing with each passing week, so I decided to put my big boy pants on and get a REAL laser. I know I could have gotten a bigger laser but the OMTECH 50W fit my budget.

There are a few similarities between RDWorks and LightBurn and I really wanted to see what RDWorks can do before dropping another $60 on the Lightburn upgrade. At the moment I can only post here, so I'll just throw this out there. RDWorks V8 8.01.57 seems to be working as I expected and getting comfortable with how things work. The one thing I was hoping to figure out was the ability to vectorize an image, (similar to the trace function in LightBurn), but after importing an image and clicking on the BMP handle the program crashes after clicking get outline. I tried to uninstall and reinstall the program but running the Uninstall.exe program returns an access denied error. I realize this is a get acquainted post and I'm happy to be here and learning, hopefully someone can help me straighten this out and I can continue my journey. Thanks for having me.

Paul from the sunshine state!

[Gene Uselman]

Welcome Paul- when you get your laser, remember to save your Vendor/User files in a safe place. As to the RDw/LB question, I am one of the original members here and used RDw until the .18 version and have not touched it for a couple years after learning the LB program. I am not sure how the more modern versions have improved but if you are used to LB, I would not expect too much from RDw. And the price is reasonable IMHO. Gene

[Paul Abbott]

Thanks for the reply Gene, ya sure you bet cha'. I noticed your location as being MN. I was born in Minneapolis and moved to Bloomington when I was about 10. Joined the Air Force after the March 2nd blizzard of 1977 and never looked back. I've spent the last 30+ years here in FL helping launch rockets, that is until I was medically retired 4 years ago. Cheers.....

Will do on the vendor files, did the same thing on my Ortur.