Still waiting for a lightsaber for taming my jungle of a yard. Is that so much to ask?
Glowforge launches consumer-grade laser cutter
71–80 of 216 posts
Re: Glowforge launches consumer-grade laser cutter
#72It'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.
And if they go out of business, you have an expensive brick?
Re: Glowforge launches consumer-grade laser cutter
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pretty sure they are talking about the K40 "blue box" laser. I have heard they require some mods to get working properly but for the price some think they are worth it.
More info please :)
Just search 40w laser engraver on ebay and you should get several hits around $400. Mine is working great after some mods.
Mods: ~$25 for 8ft ground rod and wire ~ $35 for 24V DC power supply( includes 5 volt supply because I blow out the DC section of the board it come with) ~ $45 Raspberry Pi CNC Board + drivers ~ $35 Raspberry PI
I can scp dxf files to the raspberry then rdp or ssh -X to open bCNC. Open the file and click Run. bCNC just added laser support so the setup is trivial.
I'm not too sure on the cutting power though. I have done paper, leather and cardboard but the 1/8in plywood I have tried is too thick.
I also had to put a 3904 transistor and a resistor in the board to make the laser on signal be sinking.
Re: Glowforge launches consumer-grade laser cutter
#74This looks like a decent laser but I thought I'd post a few thoughts about this package which might give a potential buyer pause. First, the main unique feature I see is the built in camera which apparently gives you a preview of cut/engraved finished part on your computer screen with the material as it's positioned inside the machine. This also (apparently, it's not clear), allows you to correct for misaligned mater…
Every issue you mentioned apart from the terrible fumes are problems that already exist in one's home with cooking in your own home, and people, seeing the convenience of cooking in their homes, have adapted to it. Regarding fumes actually, the smell from my neighbor's cooking isn't always to my liking either, but, perhaps, burnt plastic might be worse and equally undesirable to all people.
I think one thing that was not clear are the fumes are extremely toxic. Rarely do you cook where the fumes could make you go unconscious or cause long term health effects. If you dont believe me, check out:
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1475175/]
Re: Glowforge launches consumer-grade laser cutter
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every issue you mentioned apart from the terrible fumes are problems that already exist in one's home with cooking in your own home, and people, seeing the convenience of cooking in their homes, have adapted to it. Regarding fumes actually, the smell from my neighbor's cooking isn't always to my liking either, but, perhaps, burnt plastic might be worse and equally undesirable to all people.
Actualy laser cutter tend to start a fire pretty often.
Yes. And depending on the material, the fire may spread very rapidly.
Re: Glowforge launches consumer-grade laser cutter
#76Aaaaand we're done here.
Please don't post unsubstantive comments. That, combined with snark about new work, is something we try to avoid on HN. Of course, there's a legit point about cloud-connected products here too and you're welcome to comment about that substantively.
Edit: We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10273316 and marked it off-topic.
It's true that there are other unsubstantive comments in the thread, and many more elsewhere on HN, but we can't reply to them all. Our intention is absolutely not to pick on anyone personally, but to provide signals to the community about the level of discourse we're all going for here.
Re: Glowforge launches consumer-grade laser cutter
#77I was very interested until I saw this blog post: http://glowforge.com/our-new-advisor-jennifer-lawton/ If you have been following the whole Makerbot Industries (and then Stratasys) debacle, seeing the name of Jennifer Lawton might give you pause. I think I'm going to sit this one out.
> If you have been following the whole Makerbot Industries (and then Stratasys) debacle, seeing the name of Jennifer Lawton might give you pause.
For those of us who haven't been, can you give a TL;DR version of why this is significant?
Re: Glowforge launches consumer-grade laser cutter
#78I want... NO.... I NEED this! The price seems surprisingly reasonable for the amount of household items you could create that you "Forgot to get from the store."
(cofounder here) Thank you! I was lucky enough to have an industrial laser in my garage for a few years and was amazed at what it could do, and how miserably hard it was to do it. Hopefully we'll let lots of folks experience the first and none the second.
I hope so! As a kid, this would have realized so many dreams! Going on my list of tools to get!
Re: Glowforge launches consumer-grade laser cutter
#79I've worked with Laser cutters and, unless they have fixed things, you really don't want to be cutting items--especially paper and cardboard--without industrial "shop" ventilation. And many times I've set my work on fire.
Re: Glowforge launches consumer-grade laser cutter
#80I 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.
I've got a Full Spectrum Hobby 5th gen (20"x12" bed). I'm very happy with it, but the build quality is not as good something you'd get from Epilog. Of course, it's a significant fraction of the price, so it's worth it for me.