I’m an architectural model builder by trade. About a year ago I bought a M-300 from Universal (25 watt, 12″x18″ bed). I am only now getting around to setting it up because I didn’t want to chance it earlier while living out of an apartment.
I’ve loaded the laser print drivers for XP and the corelDRAW 11. I’m struggling through the M-300 Operation Manual (section 3: SYSTEM OPERATION, and section 4: RUNNING THE SYSTEM STEP BY STEP ). It’s grueling for me, going over the same lines, over and over, and little seems to be sinking in.
Asking the sales rep for my 8 hours of free personal instruction after a year and a half have passed, I’m sure will get me laughed at and a “Big chance buddy!”. Anyway I called the company from which I made the purchase and they promised to get back with me, 2 days ago. I also called the manufacturer and the tech support offered to walk me through a light job (to last no longer than an hour). But that’s at least something. I study the annual another week and then set up an appointment with the tech support guy to walk me through things. I’m sure once I do it that things will begin to sink in and I’ll gain a little confidence.
I’ll purchase Autocad (probably Release 14)later when I can afford it (maybe off of ebay). Well that’s it for now. When I eventually get around to firing this thing up, I’ll let you guys know.
I’m really not sure what you’re looking for. Sympathy, training, consulting, a lawyer to demand 8 hours or what?
You have several different problems and you really need to try to separate them and take things one at a time. Start with understanding the laser, then the print driver and then corel draw or whatever application you choose to use.
Don’t be embarrassed just because you’re a procrastinator. If it’s easier for you to write an email do it that way. The worst they can say is no. Has your laser ever been up and running? If not the mirrors may need aligning. Generally the day of training is tied to installation and it’s not uncommon to have issues for the tech guy to fix.
If you think it would help you could come up for an afternoon and watch me play mad scientist. I’m on a personal agenda of starting up a new business. Everyday I’m buying and testing new material. I won’t have time to train you but I’d be glad to have you hang around for a couple hours and talk you though what I’m doing when I layout pieces in the machine, make a test graphic and run them off on the laser. I have a laserpro machine so not everything will be the same so I’m not sure id that would help you or hurt you. The print driver options will probably be laid out differently although they perform the same tasks.
If you’re looking for consulting or training be prepared to pay up to $100 per hour for consulting. This may not be bad for very specific problems however, for corel draw you better get some corel for dummy type of book, sit own at the computer and learn it. Expect to take no less than 100 hours of work in corel draw before you start to become comfortable in it. Autocad is considerable more if you want to learn “the whole thing”. The way I learn a program is to sit down at the computer and try EVERYTHING. Start with the upper left of the tool palet and learn each one. Consult the manual as needed. Next try ever menu one by one. It is painful but that’s how you learn. Decide now Corel or autocad because you’ll go crazy trying to learn them both at the same time.
You may consider making a top 5 list of things you want the laser to do for you and hire somebody to do those 5 things. For me there is nothing more valuable than a working example. In programming we call that the “hello world”.