Page 1 of 4 1234 LastLast
Results 1 to 15 of 56

Thread: Learning Curve - CorelDraw to EzCad2

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Cincinnati, Ohio
    Posts
    1,843

    Learning Curve - CorelDraw to EzCad2

    New 50w Fiber arrived on Wednesday. Done a couple cool test runs. However the learning curve going from CorelDraw to Ezcad2 has been steep. Took me hours just to convert from mm to inches, even entering text and font selection is not very intuitive. For me anyway. I know it's like any other software, I'll get use to it. I just hope that's soon so I can make better use of the new equipment.
    Tim
    There are Big Brain people & Small Brain people. I'm one of the Big Brains - with a lot of empty space.- me
    50W Fiber - Raycus/MaxPhotonics - It's a metal eating beast!
    Epilog Fusion M2 50/30 Co2/Fiber - 2015
    Epilog Mini 24 – 35watt - 2006 (Original Tube)
    Ricoh SG3110DN
    - Liberty Laser LLC

  2. #2
    Best thing to do is create in Corel, convert everything to curves, then export as an .ai file, v8 (very important), and then import vector into EZCAD. That's the leanest workflow I have found.
    Lasers : Trotec Speedy 300 75W, Trotec Speedy 300 80W, Galvo Fiber Laser 20W
    Printers : Mimaki UJF-6042 UV Flatbed Printer , HP Designjet L26500 61" Wide Format Latex Printer, Summa S140-T 48" Vinyl Plotter
    Router : ShopBot 48" x 96" CNC Router Rotary Engravers : (2) Xenetech XOT 16 x 25 Rotary Engravers

    Real name Steve but that name was taken on the forum. Used Middle name. Call me Steve or Scott, doesn't matter.

  3. #3
    I've always exported to dxf, I've never tried ai, guess I should

    Here's some tips and observations for what they're worth

    1- If you haven't done so yet, get a screwdriver out and remove the F2 key button from whatever keyboard you're using. This will save you many gray hairs and possibly many dollars by NOT accidentally starting the machine when you meant to press F1 or type a #2 or 3 or whatever other button is close to the F2...

    2- FIRST TWO THINGS TO DO WITH EVERY NEW JOB: check the MARK SELECTED box at the bottom, and TURN OFF THE ALL THE LASER PEN COLORS. You'll come to find yourself drawing boxes and circles as locating devices on the parts you're engraving, and putting WHAT you're going to engrave within them. Tip, change the colors of these circles and boxes... Mark Selected will red-light OR engrave only what you have selected. Otherwise, everything on the screen will red-light or engrave. Turning off the colors means you can't accidentally engrave anything, and with the MARK button next to the RED button, that's all too easy to do. I still have a stack of engraved parts that shouldn't have been engraved nearby to remind me

    3- Text: Text in EZcad is totally ridiculous. The 50% char width number in the options is actually 100%, and some of the change options, like equal spacing between the CENTERLINE of characters might work okay with Chinese text, it doesn't work well with I's and W's and M's. And when you make changes to text and save the job, usually the changes become the default for the next time you use text. If WYSIWYG is okay for your jobs then it's not that bad to get used to. Just remember that all default char spacing and kerning built into any font doesn't exist in EZcad. Depending on the job it's easier to just build everything in Corel and import it in. One thing I DO like about EZcad's text is the variable text and auto-numbering features. There's a learning curve, but I like how it works. Like, when part A is finished, what will engrave on part B will be on-screen.

    3- Settings: when you find settings you like, keep separate notes about them. This is because if you run something and work in 2 or more colors like I do most of the time, if you save the settings, all the settings will save, but there's no way to tell which colors you used for what unless your memory is WAY better than mine! I gave up saving settings after a few months, and just started adding notes on-screen right in the job. This goes for hatch routines AND power-speed-freq settings.

    4- All-Calc- This feature can slow you down OR speed things up considerably. Where it works good is with logos or graphics with several separate closed sections within the whole Graphic, like a target for example. In normal use the laser sweep each full ring separately, so if you have 10 rings, 5 engraved 5 not, it will sweep all 5 rings separately. But All Calc will sweep the entire graphic as at once, which would cut down the engraving time by nearly 80%! But for text or single-entity graphics, do NOT use All Calc, as it will waste time sweeping the air space between everything. So when creating fill routines, find the multiple-part objects, then individually group and hatch them with All Calc. Afterward, you can group those that are done, and lock them (padlocks near the top) leaving you to easily group everything else to hatch differently...

    That's for starters, my BIL is needing the GCC and I have a couple of SIC flasks to engrave before he can use it...
    ========================================
    ELEVEN - rotary cutter tool machines
    FOUR - CO2 lasers
    THREE- make that FOUR now - fiber lasers
    ONE - vinyl cutter
    CASmate, Corel, Gravostyle


  4. #4
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Suwanee, GA
    Posts
    3,686
    EZCad really is simple and basic but not very intuitive at all. Like Steve (Scott), I do all my design work in Corel and import in as an ai file. Text is really pretty easy and once you get past the 50% spacing actually being the 100% you want, it works fine for most purposes. If I don't have anything special to do with the layout of the text, I'll always use EZCad for text.

    You can change the units to inch but there are several settings you'll have to change since it's not quite smart enough to do the calculations and changes for you. I left mine on mm and have pretty much gotten used to converting mm to inch and vice versa - but, this all is moot if you use Corel to design and just import in and laser.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Cincinnati, Ohio
    Posts
    1,843
    I am surprised no one has written a Corel print driver to work directly with these machines.
    Tim
    There are Big Brain people & Small Brain people. I'm one of the Big Brains - with a lot of empty space.- me
    50W Fiber - Raycus/MaxPhotonics - It's a metal eating beast!
    Epilog Fusion M2 50/30 Co2/Fiber - 2015
    Epilog Mini 24 – 35watt - 2006 (Original Tube)
    Ricoh SG3110DN
    - Liberty Laser LLC

  6. #6
    I'm actually amazed at how quickly EZcad accomplishes the computations needed for the hatch filling. But my frame of reference is when in 1992 I was watching CasMate hatch fill a graphic of a 6" tall tree silhouette in about 15 seconds on a newfangled Intel 486 computer! Use to take me 20 minutes to do that on a tablet. To fill a basic letter "M" with a .05mm spaced hatch would've taken CasMate back then at least a minute... EZcad fills the screen with all hatch fills in microseconds. It's almost as amazing as how fast those dinky mirrors move! (for fun, draw a 1/2mm square and turn on the red light and listen to the mirrors)

    I suppose a galvo driver could be made to work with Corel, but no one's bothered to make a driver to work with basic Chinese C02 laser programs...
    ========================================
    ELEVEN - rotary cutter tool machines
    FOUR - CO2 lasers
    THREE- make that FOUR now - fiber lasers
    ONE - vinyl cutter
    CASmate, Corel, Gravostyle


  7. #7
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Suwanee, GA
    Posts
    3,686
    Quote Originally Posted by Tim Bateson View Post
    I am surprised no one has written a Corel print driver to work directly with these machines.
    Considering how many variables there are it would be almost impossible.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Cincinnati, Ohio
    Posts
    1,843
    Quote Originally Posted by Gary Hair View Post
    Considering how many variables there are it would be almost impossible.
    Epilog has done it with their G2 galvo Fiber laser. Back in my younger days, I would have grabbed a copy of that, reversed engineered it and found a solution. However, now in my.. more mature years, I tend to follow most of the laws. I don't think Epilog would be happy with someone stealing their code.
    Tim
    There are Big Brain people & Small Brain people. I'm one of the Big Brains - with a lot of empty space.- me
    50W Fiber - Raycus/MaxPhotonics - It's a metal eating beast!
    Epilog Fusion M2 50/30 Co2/Fiber - 2015
    Epilog Mini 24 – 35watt - 2006 (Original Tube)
    Ricoh SG3110DN
    - Liberty Laser LLC

  9. #9
    I use the Text function in EZCad a fair bit, I engrave a lot of cutlery, three pieces at a time and it takes only seconds to change the text, it's alll aligned in a jig on the screen which is emulated on the laser bed, works really well. I also engrave small pieces of silver jewelry with text for a commercial customer and find that EZCad copes with that too even the text overlaps can be dealt with within the program.
    Shenhui SG350 fitted with a 60w tube.
    Aeon Nova 10 100w tube.
    Aeon Mira 5030 30w RF tube.
    20w Fiber Laser.
    50w Fiber Laser.
    Located in the Isle of Man, which isn't in the UK but almost surrounded by it.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Brisbane, Australia
    Posts
    286
    I have never used EzCad2 but I have quite a bad soft for sending artwork to my laser and I use CorelDraw to create artworks. Since CorelDraw has very bad dxf export(at least it is bad in X4) and all curves are just converted to lines and no arcs it is absolutely useless. What saves me is a CorelDraw macros that is called e-Cut. It has dxf export feature that allows me to save artwork as dxf file with lines and arcs. This is what I do with it.

    1)Create an artwork in CorelDraw
    2)reduce numbers of nodes used in the artwork with CorelDraw built in feature
    3)use the macros DXF export feature to export artwork as DXF file
    4)open it in my laser software and send it to the laser.

    It all works pretty well. The step 2 is quite important as most of fonts I use have quite a crappy vector design where there are a significant number of nodes that is there for nothing. If I do not reduces nodes my laser will slow down on each node and nothing good will come from it.

    Other great features of e-cut that I use

    1)Nesting. Excellent feature that saves a lot of time and material. The only thing is missing is sorting. Nested pieces cannot be sorted in order.
    2)Curve length. You can measure all curves length and based on a speed of cutting you know how long it will take to cut them all out. It helps to quote a job. You can even set it to show you a quote if you set a price in the macros. Not easy to use and probably needs some clarification on how to set it up properly. However Curve length feature itself is just a click and it tells you how long they are all are.
    3) Artwork area. As easy as the curve length feature. Just select all curves and click a button in the macros. So if you know a density of the material you use you can tell how heavy the whole artwork will be after it is cut out. The e-cut macros won't show you the weight but it will show you the area so it is just as simple as using that number, material density and a calculator to get the actual weight.
    4)There are a lot of features I do not use but some of them may be handy to automate their processes and help to create an artwork.

    I do not know if I am allowed to post a link here to the macros website but if you just google for "e-cut" you will find it. It is just $60.
    GCC Spirit GX Pro 100W(synrad)
    Laserlife Ezlaser LCW 300W(Yongli DLT-300)

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Location
    NW Arkansas
    Posts
    1,951
    Blog Entries
    1
    One thing i did was turn on the function to prompt if I wanted to laser. It eliminates Kev's f2 or even footpedal issue as it makes me hit the enter key to lase. I do like putting notes on page and engrave only selected. I'm changing to that for sure. If you use dxf, use old export version such as version 4 of AutoCAD from Corel. Later versions don't work. The only think I dislike about using text along with graphics and exporting is it is one vector and I find I want to change something, so I usually add text at ezcad. And practice get a bunch of scrap and go to it!
    Woodworking, Old Tools and Shooting
    Ray Fine RF-1390 Laser Ray Fine 20watt Fiber Laser
    SFX 50 Watt Fiber Laser
    PM2000, Delta BS, Delta sander, Powermatic 50 jointer,
    Powermatic 100-12 planer, Rockwell 15-126 radial drill press
    Rockwell 46-450 lathe, and 2 Walker Turner RA1100 radial saws
    Jet JWS18, bandsaw Carbide Create CNC, RIA 22TCM 1911s and others

  12. #12
    my 2.5.3 version must be older than the 'enter key' version-- I have a 2.7.6 version but my dongle don't like it..
    ========================================
    ELEVEN - rotary cutter tool machines
    FOUR - CO2 lasers
    THREE- make that FOUR now - fiber lasers
    ONE - vinyl cutter
    CASmate, Corel, Gravostyle


  13. #13
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Cincinnati, Ohio
    Posts
    1,843
    My "dongle" is built into the laser. Is this common? Makes it a pain, because I like to work on my laptop while watching TV late at night. With this setup, I cannot use Ezcad2 in that fashion.
    Tim
    There are Big Brain people & Small Brain people. I'm one of the Big Brains - with a lot of empty space.- me
    50W Fiber - Raycus/MaxPhotonics - It's a metal eating beast!
    Epilog Fusion M2 50/30 Co2/Fiber - 2015
    Epilog Mini 24 – 35watt - 2006 (Original Tube)
    Ricoh SG3110DN
    - Liberty Laser LLC

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Suwanee, GA
    Posts
    3,686
    Quote Originally Posted by Tim Bateson View Post
    My "dongle" is built into the laser. Is this common? Makes it a pain, because I like to work on my laptop while watching TV late at night. With this setup, I cannot use Ezcad2 in that fashion.
    Yep, it's how most of the Chinese machines work. The dongle is in the controller card I believe. You could use teamviewer, or something similar, to remote into your fiber machine and do whatever work you need to do.

  15. #15
    You might be able to download EZCAD Lite and save files in that on your laptop. I don't believe EZCAD Lite uses any dongle.
    Lasers : Trotec Speedy 300 75W, Trotec Speedy 300 80W, Galvo Fiber Laser 20W
    Printers : Mimaki UJF-6042 UV Flatbed Printer , HP Designjet L26500 61" Wide Format Latex Printer, Summa S140-T 48" Vinyl Plotter
    Router : ShopBot 48" x 96" CNC Router Rotary Engravers : (2) Xenetech XOT 16 x 25 Rotary Engravers

    Real name Steve but that name was taken on the forum. Used Middle name. Call me Steve or Scott, doesn't matter.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •