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Hello folk. I've just pulled the trigger on a Creality Laser Falcon laser engraver. This was a bit of a spur of the moment "looks like a bargain" knee jerk buy. 🫣 I have used 1ManArmy laser cut masks and enjoyed their fidelity. I am hoping that I will be able to create my own masks using this tool. I have zero experience with this sort of thing so I have to expect failures. There is also no guarantee that this device, which is aimed at the crafting hobbyist, will give me anything close to the fidelity I hope for. Experimentation will be the name of the game. It comes well packaged in a stout cardboard box. Rudimentary instructions and assembly guide on the top with some fun stickers. I made sure everything was present. Creality include a pair of tinted glasses to use during operation but no base plate in this kit. The user must source and provide a suitable flat metal plate to protect the workspace from damage. The working area is 400mm x 415mm once everything is assembled. The machine operates either by USB-USBC cable directly from your PC/other interface or by using a TF card straight into the engraver. Creality supply a square of thin plywood and a pre-loaded test piece to give the machine a whirl. I'll report back with more in due course. Cheers, Guy

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I've since discovered that the machine I've bought recommends a programme called "Lightburn". I believe I can create files elsewhere and then import them to Lightburn. I foresee much learning in my future 😄

I tend to just stick with Silhouette Studio, which is pretty clunky, but also enormously capable—especially if you pay the small upgrade fee to the Business Edition. Of course, this assumes you're in the Silhouette universe, rather than Cricut, Brother, or some other alternative. Another option is Affinity Designer, which is a highly cost-effective alternative to Adobe Illustrator. Kev

Thanks @talbot . I appreciate your kind words. Glad you enjoyed the model. Cheers, Guy

If you're reading this, then I'm sure you will have noticed that I've started to customise some of the forum "header card" images that now adorn each section of the forums. Let me know what you think! I've mainly used images of my own models, just to avoid any copyright issues with "found" images. There are few for which I haven't been able to come up with anything, however, so I'd welcome any suggestions or contributions. We could feasibly swap them out on an occasional or even regular basis, though I suspect that may dilute their usefulness as a recognition tool. Kev