new from west virginia

[denijim]

im a retired mechanic , retired old school biker and 100% hillbilly im just getting into laser engraving and cutting (wife says i have to do something to keep myself out of trouble lol)

[Joe Jones]

Hi,

You are using one of the home hobby lasers, I assume. This is a good place to find designs and files that you can apply to a laser. You might also look at the Louisiana Hobby Guy forum. It is specifically FOR folks with these lasers.

http://lahobbyguy.com/bb/index.php

I have four lasers, myself, and soon to be five, I guess. Three X-TOOL D1 PRO units and one 30 watt fiber laser. X-TOOL is coming out with a 40 Watt blue diode laser tomorrow (1/11/23) so I will be excited to see what that one does.

Welcome to the Plasma Spider Forums.

Joe

[adbuch]

Welcome aboard JIm! What kind of laser engraver to you have? There is lots of great information here, and plenty of folks to give you some help if you get stuck. What sorts of projects are you engraving/cutting? Perhaps post a few photos so we can see what you are up to.
David

[denijim]

I’ve got a Ortur Master 2 S2 SF 20watt I’m really just dabbling in wood and glass as a hobby I’m retired so lots of time on my hands lol

[acourtjester]

Hi Denijim I have an Ortur master also not sure if it the same unit you have. Do you know how many diodes your unit has. these companies do funny marketing with the wattage of the lasers. They talk power but there is actually 2, power consumed and optical power. I would suggest you buy Lightburn software to do your planning. It has many nice features and you can also do art work with it too. Many YouTube videos to help you get projects done. A And you can pick up some neat tricks for etching.

[adbuch]

You can get the free LightBurn trial here:

https://lightburnsoftware.com/pages/tri ... re-you-buy

It's a fun program to use. I don't have a laser cutter (gave mine away before I ever used it) but the LightBurn software is also great for drawing, node editing, etc. and will export in dxf and svg formats for import to other drawing programs or cam software.

David