Newbie from Lancashire

[Andrew Fallon]

Hi all and thanks for allowing me in.
I am from Blackburn in Lancashire and have recently purchased a Chinese 50w from a distributer in Wales.
My intention having recently took early retirement from Perspex International, is to make an income from my new toy.
Unfortunately with things the way they are at present, although I have lots of time to educate myself, I am having problems sourcing materials that can be delivered in a relatively good timeframe.
I am hoping in the meantime to use up what I have (which is not loads), and learn what I can from a software point of view.
Currently I have Coral draw 2020 which seems to be a steep learning curve having never used such software before, and the version of RDWorks (8) that came with the machine. I have also toyed with lightburn software but have not yet put much effort in that.

So hoping to learn a few things from you people and hoping the current world situation improves soon.

Stay safe and don't forget to wash your hands
Andy F

[Gene Uselman]

Welcome Andy- now is a great time to sharpen your skills with your new tool. One of the most important skills for someone making a profit from lasers is being able to design in 2D- Corel is a full featured graphics program but is a fairly steep learning curve depending upon your familiarity with computers and similar programs. I have made my living in graphics for 25+ years and I am very impressed with Lightburn, I think you will be able to master that a lot quicker than Corel and it will make Corel or any similar program easier to learn as most graphics programs are similar, tools are called by different names and use different symbols but all do similar tasks. In schools they teach Adobe Illustrator for vector files and Adobe Photoshop for bitmap files- they are the baseline programs in the graphics field but many others are available which tend to combine vector and limited bitmap capabilities [Corel for instance]. Lightburn is focused upon our chosen field and has basic tools needed by the type of work most of use produce. Willy Ivy has a post up now with a fresh design he created from a customers idea using Lightburn. I don't believe he has any background in graphics but I think I remember he was using Corel and RDworks and has switched to Lightburn. Well... that got to be more detailed than I intended but welcome and read and ask questions. Gene

[Andrew Fallon]

Thanks Gene,

I will look closer at Lightburn.
On a good note I have just sourced some materials 3mm Ply 6mm Ply and 3mm MDF and they are on their way to me. In the meantime I will have a play with the software.
Andy F