My youth after school org was lucky enough to get a grant to build a makerspace for our kids a few years back and we includes a 600x900 red & black laser and an operator PC. Our programs are entirely donor-supported - members pay at most $20 / year for everything we offer - from meals to field trips to tutoring and swim lessons. We receive no state or federal funds but have an awesome community who keeps our doors open.
We also have 40 pc’s for instructional use by our members. We have Inkscape installed of all of these, but it would be beneficial for each student finalize their design by program the laser power, scan/cut settings and cut order prior to taking up time at the actual pc used to operate the laser.
I know this is a rather unusual scenario compared to most, but does anyone have a good suggestion on how we could utilize Light Burn or other software to streamline this process?
Or is there any possibility for Light Burn to have a per laser license (like current version pay for the ability to actually control & operate the laser) as well as a design only license (that only allows design and set-up but not cutting.). This would be rather handy for maker-space use-cases. Or perhaps these features could be supported via the trial after 30 days?
LightBurn does per-seat pricing deals for maker spaces 75% off the standard price. That’s currently $20 for the DSP version, and $10 for the GCode version, and we’ll extend this price to anyone who’s a makerspace member, so they can have their own copy on their own computer, to use with job setup for the space.
As the functionality of LightBurn increases, more and more focus will be on import, design, and editing functionality. For that reason, we feel like what you’re asking for here is akin to a “free version” of PhotoShop that doesn’t print, so you can bring it to someone with the full version to print for you, when the lion’s share of the development effort has gone into the design features.
We can also do floating licenses, where you can install on as many systems as you like, but are limited to some fixed number of concurrent users.
Of course, I understand the need to support continued development of this software. I’d not considered that the bulk of development would be design-focus as opposed to machine features (like the camera controls)
With that background, it seems obvious the need and value of licensing the design scope as well as the machine scope and appreciate the steps you’ve taken to accommodate makerspace use-cases.
Thanks for making this software! Looking forward to trialing it with our kiddos!