The earlier threads are all closed. Wanted to second the idea of adding vinyl cutter support. I have a hobby laser (Lightobjects board) that i rarely use so haven’t been able to justify lightburn (but really loved the trial usage)
Just got a Vinyl Express cutter that is a rebranded red sail device, it didn’t come with software so looking at having to buy something. Would prefer to buy lightburn to keep both devices using the same workflow.
It seems the editor would be almost identical
Anyway - just a plug for the idea as I know you were entertaining it earlier in 2020
Check out the inkcut inkscape extension - it appears to support quite a few and has some info on the protocols they support. Looks like mine speaks HPGL
Finally had time to work on this. My device (and I would assume many others from the list of supported device in the app I am using) has a simple FTDI serial chip so is accessed as a standard COM port. Then the software passes HPGL commands - pretty basic go to this X and Y coordinate stuff as documented here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-GL
Your is the Vinyl Express system, correct? Do you have a model number or a link? Sounds like it would be a good place to start, so I might as well buy one.
Mine is a Vinyl Express R II, Vinyl express rebrands RedSail devices such as those found here http://redsailcnc.com/products.html#
I bought mine second hand and its a smaller one R450 I believe which it looks like they no longer sell
Checking the specs of the larger ones they do sell they call out HPGL as the language so I assume nothing has changed.
Happy to help and test as well from here @LightBurn , I have an AB-720 vinyl cutter (which has ARMS auto marking/cut recognition), which probably works with the same code as the ones from u.s.cutter if I don’t use the ARMS functionality. Cutter works over USB and USB stick, find attached 2 simple usb stick files (without ARMS to keep it simple), rename the txt to plt
Some settings a vinyl cutter need to cater for blade offset, depending on blade and some other factors for a 45 degree blade (there are other blade/degrees on the market, 45 degree is a blade for general usage:
Blade offset (just for my combination cutter/blade 0.38mm)
Overcut (just for my combination cutter/blade 0.50mm)
The pressure (blade force) and speed is regulated on the model itself like as the u.s.cutter ones I believe, therefor does not need to be embedded in the plt code.
Lightburn is capable of importing and showing the files. That’s a start
