Chris - I use a program called V-Carve Pro, by VETRIC Software to draw and design the parts. It’s not something I’d go out and purchase as it’s designed for use with CNC machines. Really, any program that can generate a vector file will work - Autocad, Adobe, Corel,.....etc.. There are free ones too, but learning curves can be a bit higher. You don’t actually need much, just something that can draw lines in scale. When I bought the laser, I also bought Corel, but it was overkill for what I needed, and would have had to spent some time learning. I already was well versed in the V-Carve program for my cabinet shop, and it can export files as DXF (cad), so I just stuck with what I knew. Once you have the vector file, you need a CAM program to create code to actually run the laser (not as complicated as it sounds) The program I use, and which came with the laser, is called RDWorks. RDWorks and the laser are all a straight from China in a crate deal, but the software is very intuitive and easy to use, surprisingly, except all the pop-up windows are in Chinese. Sooner or later I’ll be able to ready “file successfully saved” in Mandarin. The RDWorks program also has a 2d CAD component that could be used to draw. The laser only understands the metric system, so drawings are done in millimeters. I blow up plans to O-Scale, and just measure them with a metric ruler. We use metric a lot in the cabinet shop, and even to layout out things on job sites. It’s honestly much easier to use, and easier to be more precise using it, compared to doing our typical thousands of fractional calculations a day. In woodworking, precision to one mm is between a 1/16 and 1/32 - pretty good, and you never see a fraction. The following is the V-Carve drawing of the Erie caboose parts.
