LaserUser.com Forum (formerly RDWorksLab)

Hi all, I've been following Russ's youtube channel for several years now and finally took the plunge with an 80W Orange and White machine (7050 size) from eBay back in December.

I've since been in touch with Russ and got myself a DoHICky although I've not had chance to use it yet. I've also bought an Ultimate air assist upgrade kit from Cloudray which I plan to fit this week.

Yes, I've backed up the vendor settings and the user settings

Looking forward to learning from you all and sharing info with you.

Edit: I probably ought to say, I'm a Linux user normally but I do run an old WinXP in virtualbox which is where I am running RDWorks. I'd love to have a native Linux version of the software but that seems unlikely any time soon.

Welcome Martin - you are ahead of the curve in being prepared.

You could test lightburn on linux, they have a demo version. It is much more pleasant to use than rdworks.

Pete Cyr wrote: Thu Jan 21, 2021 Welcome Martin - you are ahead of the curve in being prepared.

Thanks Pete. I installed the ultimate air assist this evening and it is working fine. I've regulated down the airflow when not "blowing" to a whisper as Russ shows and just run a quick engrave test on 3mm extruded acrylic (25% @ 400mm/sec). I found that although there is much less condensate on the job, there is still some and more than I expected - curious...

Philipp Pap wrote: Thu Jan 21, 2021 You could test lightburn on linux, they have a demo version. It is much more pleasant to use than rdworks.

Thanks Philipp, I have wondered a few times about buying a licence for lightburn, I'm just in two minds whether I should persevere with RDWorks a bit more as it seems to work fine on XP via virtualbox. I'm tempted to try out the month trial but I need to make sure I've got some time to experiment when I do.

Unless you have the use of other software for design you are already familiar with I would encourage you to take the plunge and purchase Lightburn.
It is better by far than RDWORKs. The developer is continuing to improve his creation, takes input for change or additions and is responsive to comments and questions. It is a guy who works full time on his coding - not a corporation.

I'll second the suggestion to take the plunge for LightBurn. It's a very intuitive program to learn. Even the advanced features are written to be easily implemented. The tutorials available via the YouTube and the advice from the LightBurn support forum are fabulous.

I kept RDWorks installed for the tasks about which I was uncertain in LightBurn, but that dropped off the map in short order.

I'm constantly amazed at the level of support provided by the developer and the "user-friendliness" of the program and of the developer.

The kicker is that the price is easily one-tenth of the real value of the program.

Pete Cyr wrote: Thu Jan 21, 2021 It is a guy who works full time on his coding - not a corporation.

That's good to know, I'm self employed and write software (as well as develop electronics) for a living so I can appreciate the effort that goes in to it

I am keen on open source software whenever possible and I use both FreeCAD for 3D cad work and Inkscape for vector work, both of which have helped me generate stuff for the laser therefore I don't expect to use RDWorks (or lightburn) as a primary development tool but I can easily see how lightburn would be a better option for that. I will probably got ahead and get lightburn anyway.

fred ungewitter wrote: Thu Jan 21, 2021 The kicker is that the price is easily one-tenth of the real value of the program.

I agree, it's a good price.

Decided to install Lightburn last night and I have to say, I am super impressed already!

Installed and working on Linux Mint 20 (even though they say it's not offically supported it seems to work fine).

I've been binge watching Lightburn youtube videos to get up to speed with what it can do. I love the camera feature, that's definitely on my list of improvements to do.

On a different topic, I'm going to do a mode burn test today and also put Russ' DoHICky to work so I can see what sort of power I am actually getting.