I use Lightburn and Fusion 360 in my office and my laser/CNC is in the shop.
What are my options to connect or transfer files to my FoxAlien Vasto in the shop? I do not want to use a Laptop Commuter.
Can I use an inexpensive tablet?
As far as supported solutions:
- Run LightBurn directly on dedicated Windows/Mac/Linux x64 device (or x86 on Windows) including a tablet. LightBurn is capable of running on fairly low system requirements
- Generate g-code in LightBurn, then run on any device that could connect to your laser using a g-code sender. This could be a dedicated offline controller for your machine or any other device with an available g-code sending application.
There are other more exotic setups you could use that are not supported or necessarily recommended. For example, wireless setups or using LightBurn directly on Pi hardware with emulation. Do a search for those on the forum if that’s of interest.
Thanks Is the same for Fusion 360?
In what context? Fusion 360 isn’t directly involved in the control of the laser. You could potentially create g-code using the CAM functionality but that’s a bit cumbersome relative to doing this in LightBurn. You would then send the g-code to the laser with the same type of g-code sender functionality.
Fusion 360 has considerably higher system requirements than LightBurn so likely won’t work well on low powered machines. It also requires internet connectivity to function in case that’s a barrier. It runs on 64-bit editions of Windows and MacOS. No Linux build I’m aware of.
My Fox Ailen Vasto is a CNC Router with a Laser attachment I want to do my design work in my office and then take the gcode to the shop and run the project, Is this possible. I do not have internet in the shop.
I want to use Fusion 360 for my CNC work, and Lightburn for my laser work.
Thanks for your help
Without a network, you can copy the NC code to a USB thumb drive and “Run Gcode” in Lightburn on the shop computer. That is how I did until I got my NAS file storage box working with the computers.
Yes. You’ll need a computer that will connect to the CNC in any case.
In all cases you will do your design work in your office in LightBurn or Fusion 360. Then for CNC work export the gcode from Fusion 360.
For operating the CNC/laser:
- Run LightBurn on the dedicated computer. Then control the laser with LightBurn. You could potentially run the Fusion 360 generated gcode from LightBurn as well but may not be ideal. Alternatively use a program like Universal Gcode Sender (UGS) or similar program to control the CNC.
- Generate g-code out of LightBurn in office. Then run laser from UGS or similar program. Same with CNC gcode.
This is classically known as sneakernet.
Hah! You are dating yourself. We called it the Floppy Network.
8" ones?
Did this originally with a punched paper tape. 
Teletype! I saw the 8", but mine were the 5.25" ones. I was mostly in the PC world. I remember those IBM 10" canisters too.
Thanks, Again
Joe
Thanks for your help.
I would like to use a low-cost tablet in the shop, the Fusion5 10" Windows 11 FWIN232 PRO N4120 Intel Quad-Core look like a good choice for about $250.00. do you think this will work?
Joe
If the laptop is capable of running Windows 11 well then it will likely run LightBurn without issue, especially if you’re only running jobs from it.
The 10" screen may be a little cumbersome and I’m guessing is a low resolution display but you can rearrange your LightBurn windows to accommodate the lower resolution.
If you were planning to eventually use the laptop for Galvo work then my understanding is that a more powerful machine is beneficial there.
I want to do my design work in my office on my Dell computer in Lightburn or Fusion 360 and then take the g code to the shop and run the project with the fusion windows11 tablet.
Will this work? I don’t have internet in my shop.
I am new to this software, so please ignore the silly questions.
Thanks Joe Dallas
Yes. You can work this way.
However, one thing I’ll caution is that if the machine is new to you and you’re new to lasering and CNC that much of the early stages of this will require experimentation with settings and material. This will require many iterations of testing. Do so will be much easier if you have the g-code generating software available on the system that you’re using to experiment. Else you’ll be in a constant cycle of generating g-code in office, going to the shop, finding that something isn’t quite right, going back to the office, updating, back to the shop, test, and repeat.
Once you have everything dialed in, then generating g-code remotely will be more predictable.
There a bunch of certified refurbed desktop computers available for around $200 to $250. I have four of them one of which has an I-7 cpu, 16 GB of RAM and a TB hard drive. The other 3 have I-5 processors. I run Win11 in 64 bit mode, and the machine loves it. Of course you will need the periferals, Monitor, Mouse, and Keyboard, but you will have all the power you need and adecent sized screen to work with.
Hi Joe,
You and I share the same delima.
My Laser is in an Metal out building about 20 meters from my home.
Because the building is metal I couldn’t use a normal wireless access point to connect to the laser, so here is what I did.
I set up an external wireless point to point bridge and connected it to a wireless access point in the shed. The access point has a built in ethernet switch so I wired it to the bridge and the laser. This allowed me to connect the PC in my home office directly to the laser via ethernet and I had wifi in my shed.
If you have a Windows PC you can set it up for remote access and that will allow you to access your pc from an iPad or Android tablet. You can even set it up to access it from your phone.
I tried this with an ipad pro and it does work, it has some lag but if you need to make a few minor adjustments to the cut/engrave settings it works. I have a keyboard & mouse for my Ipad and I wouldn’t recommend trying this with just a touchscreen.
Fortunately i have a spare Macbook I leave down at the shed so I don’t have to use remote desktop anymore. But it does work, it’s not perfect and it is a bit slow but it sure beats walking back and forth from the office 10 times a day. 
Cheers,
Rob
How does this work?
If wifi won’t work how did you end up using wifi?
Hi Jack,
I use a EnGenius Wireless point to point bridge. I have one side connected to my main router and the other is connected to a wireless access point in the shed that has a couple of ethernet ports.
The Laser connects to one of the ports and the router sees it as just another device on the network. If the laser is turned on I can send jobs straight to the controller from the PC in my office.
I’ve been using this setup for about 18 months and it has been flawless.
Cheers,
Rob