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spacedocumentation:lasercutterprinttofilehowto

Laser Cutter Print to File HOW TO

Install the ULS Print Drivers for the Laser Cutter on your own Windows PC and you can then do a “Print to File” and just use that to laser cut your project.

(Note that steps 1-4 are all about installing the V-460 laser cutter driver on your PC, which is a one-time process. Once that is done, all you ever have to do is be sure your “pens” are configured properly and Print to File from your favorite applications.)

In a nutshell, this tip lets you create a laser cutter project on your own PC using whatever program you prefer (that supports the Print functionality). When ready, select Print and check the “Print to File” option to generate a .prn file that you can copy to the laser cutter PC (probably via USB jump drive) and then print direct to the laser cutter.

NOTE: This was done under Windows XP

1 Obtain the V-460 Printer driver from the laser cutter PC Located under “C:\laser driver reload” (just copy contents of directory)

2 On your own PC, In Windows XP, go to “Start→Printers and Faxes” and select “Add a printer”

3 Select LOCAL Printer (make sure auto install PnP drivers in NOT checked)

3.1 Select, Next, then Next. You should now be at the Screen where you select what printer driver to install (Manufacturer and Type Listboxes) There, Click on the “Have Disk” button and browse to the directory where you copied the drivers from step 1 into.

3.2 Select the “V-460” Printer (for the 60W Laser Cutter)

3.3 Windows will then install the driver.

4 Next, from your Windows XP Desktop, go back into “Start→Printers and Faxes” and Right-Click on the “V-460” Printer and Select “Printer Preferences”

4.1 From that dialog, select the “Engraving Field” tab

4.2 Set the Width to 24.0 inches and the Height to 18.0 inches

4.3 Set the Orientation to Landscape

4.4 Select the “Laser Settings” tab and configure your pens as required for the laser cutter. (Same as you would on the laser cutter PC)

5 In Windows, you could now set this to be the default printer, or remember to set it manually in your program.

6 In your editing program, select Print, select the V-460 Printer and be sure to check “Print to File”. This will result in a .prn file being created on your PC.

7 Copy that .prn file to the Laser Cutter for printing

8 On the laser cutter PC: Open a Command Prompt and type “print <filename>” to send the file to the laser cutter!

NOTE: TurboCad required me to set the line width to 0.001“ to print properly. The default value of 0 did not work. When I used 0 for line width and sent the .prn file to the laser cutter it just showed 0/0/0 for pen settings and would not print anything.

spacedocumentation/lasercutterprinttofilehowto.txt · Last modified: 2013/08/27 19:00 by raster