Aaaaand we're done here.
Glowforge launches consumer-grade laser cutter
51–60 of 216 posts
Re: Glowforge launches consumer-grade laser cutter
#52It's a very polished product, and the "pen" mode is a cool idea. To me, they're targeting an odd demographic, Makers who can afford expensive toys / tools, but also want a very friendly, hands-off interface. I would have expected the Maker camp to be ordering ~ $700 40-50W laser cutters from Shenzhen. I suppose the Glowforge would be pretty great in a school setting, though.
I'm a maker. Tell me more about this $700 Shenzhen laser cutter? I googled it and I'm coming up with a few things, but only very small $400 units and very big expensive units.
You can also get a membership to techshop.ws where they have cutters among MANY other items.
https://www.noisebridge.net/ hacker space on Mission in SF also had a fairly large 40W cutter... It was not setup for a while - but I think its working now... and you can use that one pretty much free (donate to the space though is a good idea)
Re: Glowforge launches consumer-grade laser cutter
#53I have a 40W hobbyist laser cutter. It's fun, and a great tool for various projects, like making board games[1,2]. That said, sometimes materials inside the machine catch fire, and sometimes the beam reflects or dwells on a section of the metal enclosure. It's interesting that they've chosen to make the entire (?) enclosure out of plastic, itself a combustible material. I get why they went with plastic (cheaper to fa…
What unit do you have? I've been thinking about getting one.
Re: Glowforge launches consumer-grade laser cutter
#54Re: Glowforge launches consumer-grade laser cutter
#55Re: Glowforge launches consumer-grade laser cutter
#56It's not just cloud connected, it's cloud dependent. It requires internet access and their cloud services to function at all. That's kind of disappointing.
That's why I like to read comments before clicking. Thanks for saving my bandwidth. What a shame.
Re: Glowforge launches consumer-grade laser cutter
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good question, I _think_ the ideas is the exact opposite -- you're not depending on Glowforge UI to be backed by a startups servers, the software runs on google cloud instead. Pros and cons, obviously, but I think the main pro is (like a Tesla) the machine's performance and usability can be improved without you installing any new software. As far as dependencies go, google's probably the best possible choice.
Huh? Someone has to manage and pay for the software running on "Google's cloud".
That part is, in my experience, vanishingly cheap if you're not doing high rate DB transactions. The whole thing could clearly be moved to other managed hosting providers or private servers, and I'm sure ultimately you can run a somewhat constrained version on the device itself. That said, launching in the cloud seems like the right choice temporally (time-to-market) and economically. Focusing (sorry) on building the actual device seems like a reasonable choice to me.
Re: Glowforge launches consumer-grade laser cutter
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a maker. Tell me more about this $700 Shenzhen laser cutter? I googled it and I'm coming up with a few things, but only very small $400 units and very big expensive units.
You can also get a membership to techshop.ws where they have cutters among MANY other items. https://www.noisebridge.net/ hacker space on Mission in SF also had a fairly large 40W cutter... It was not setup for a while - but I think its working now... and you can use that one pretty much free (donate to the space though is a good idea)
Laser cutters are by far the most popular tools at tech shop. Reservations typically fill up 2-3 weeks in advance. Having a hobby machine at home for smaller or recurring jobs could save a lot of time.
Re: Glowforge launches consumer-grade laser cutter
#59It's not just cloud connected, it's cloud dependent. It requires internet access and their cloud services to function at all. That's kind of disappointing.
Do you have any details about this? I can't seem to find that on their site.
But yeah, if that's true it's a real buzzkill.
Re: Glowforge launches consumer-grade laser cutter
#60Someone please connect this with a Microsoft Kinect and build a robot turret on treads for eliminating pests such as mosquitos.