Yeah…I’m not thrilled. I would have waited had I known it was going to be a form factor similar to the compact filter. Now to find out it’s going to be similar, but better, and I only saved myself a few months? Pretty upsetting.
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As a owner that pre purchased the Glowforge not only for the cost but also the aesthetics of the whole machine, I have to say I am disappointed. The GF is beautiful compared to other laser cutters and something I was proud to have in my office. The compact air filter shown in the picture is ugly and reminds me of circa 1980’s computers. Is that the actual form? After waiting 2 years we can’t have a good looking accessory?
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I backed a Pro + Air Filter unit back in 2015. Like most folks, some years later the main unit arrived.
Seeing this latest news, and having vented outdoors in a similar fashion to everyone else for the last two years, I wrote in to support to see what the refundable amount on a combined purchase would be.
I got a rather obtuse “You will get back what you paid for the filter” response leads me to make this suggestion:
Get the numbers you plan to offer for refunding your early backers sorted out and distributed to your support team.
If you plan to offer refunds, know what the number is before you do.
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I guess I’m confused here. Did you want a specific number? You can find that under your account (and yes, they should be able to give you the specific dollar amount).
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My account page showed what I paid for the filter in 2015. I requested a refund recently and received that amount pretty quickly.
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I stand corrected.
Looks like I can log on at Glowforge. Com and go to
https://glowforge.com/settings/purchase-history
To find a breakdown.
I didn’t have it in email.
Seems like the air filter as promised four years ago is $500 as a line item.
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As an update, we were finally able to Order the CF for our schools. They arrived yesterday. SO we will finally be able ot use them in class. Thanks to GF for allowing us to get the CF!
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Great news. I hope your students appreciate your efforts on their behalf, and I hope you will share their creations on the forum.
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I think you should also have a separate $99 (?) shipping line item for the filter as well.
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I was one of the very early backers in 2015. I opted to wait until the filter was available to receive my GF Pro. When I look at my account, I only see the air filter with a delivery date of Oct 31, 2019 - the GF Pro itself does not show - should I see the GF Pro with the same delivery date?
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it is to late to request a refund on the air filter if we were a part of the original pre-order?
Pretty sure it’s okay to cancel until you take delivery on it.
As you get a little closer to the due date, I’d make sure to send a note directly to support@glowforge.com to alert them to the situation. They should have it somewhere in the system, but they did switch to a new store front recently, and the data might have gotten lost in transit. (Just to be on the safe side. Can’t hurt.)
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@dan If I could swear here I would. That is how upset we are about this. Not only did we have to wait 2 WHOLE MONTHS WITHOUT NOTICE; we have been under the impression that we’d get what we paid for. As a business; this is terrible customer service in regards to communication.
We do recognize that things do change and sometimes things just don’t work out. Life happens and we move on, however in this case as a business, you guys have been having “problems” since day one with this air filter and it making me question why we even ordered one. Seriously your community has come up with cheaper and more effective filters in less time than the “feature creep” version you have promised so long ago; not to mention your competitors have offered air filtration systems since day one and followed through. Also I’d like to add that you stated that the new one has three key differences, however to be honest, a notification sound for when the HEPA filter is nearly full SHOULD BE STANDARD ON EVERY ONE. Come on!! Not to mention the “prefilter”, while is a nice touch, adds to the cost and proves feature creep is just being added on to this one as well which is a total shame.
So now we’ve come to this point of the rant to point out the fact that instead up being able to give us what has been promised, which honestly feels like we’ve been lied to as the whole point of this air filter was to fit nicely under the unit instead of feeling like a tethered vacuum cleaner module, to now be told that we are getting an overly glorified version of the “compact filter” (Which by the way; IS NOT compact at all considering Dremel offers one for the similar price and is half the size). Needless to say your comment of “We know the new design will be great for many of you, but not for everyone - and I cannot apologize enough to you for that.” is quite frankly the understatement of the year.
If this the best you can offer; then that sadly hurts and personally feel that our money that we invested into a vaporware product was not well spent. I will be having a meeting with my other business partners to decide if we want to continue with the farce of this “new” air filter or if we should look into a much cheaper solution given there are plenty of systems online that offer the same things you guys do; which a simple Google search for Laser Cutter Air Filter shows quite a few under $800 vs the launch price of the Compact Filter’s $995.
Now I know a few community members will disagree with how I’ve worded this; I am fine with this and take full responsibility for any negative impact this may have. Though I know other members this will ring true with. Either way our business is furious with this outcome as I have had to tell my members of “oh we’ll be getting the filter soon!TM” and have been chewed out by them too many times to count because of a $1000 product has been delayed and has been more elusive than a unicorn at this point. Glowforge really doesn’t make it easy for us when it comes to all the time and money invested into a product that doesn’t exist right now, let alone when it does, how much it will cost to keep the filters… If I find out this “new” unit uses the same stupid filters as the “Compact Filter” does… our emotions will turn from being upset to rage…
Edit/Update: So after discussing it with our business team. We realized that given our “delivery date” hasn’t changed; the Glowforge team knew this was going to happen and didn’t say anything sooner. This hearkens back to the whole “poor communication” I spoke about earlier… However we’ll probably just stick with the NEW new filter system only due to the fact that it’s still slated to be here at the end of October and after figuring prices out; there would only be a $200 max difference between this and another filtration system. Let’s just hope it’s worth it.
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You absolutely should. I know you were concerned with keeping costs down back about a year ago when the Plus models were released. Since the money is an issue, do some research, and see if you can find a filter that will work under your budget a bit better. You can get a refund from Glowforge for what you paid for the filter, and might have enough left over to pick up a spare cartridge or pre-filter.
You do want to be careful about taking it down too much in size though - the physics of the situation (which might have been what killed the under-the-machine filter here) is that a smaller filter area is going to fill up even faster. And this size filter fills up pretty quickly, depending on what you are cutting. Check what it costs you to replace the filters, and how much they can hold before they have to be changed out, you’ll want to make sure to get one that can handle your business use.
Frankly, if you have any way of venting outdoors, and you’re on a tight budget, that is a far superior way to go. Or setting up a quick connect so you can easily switch back and forth between filtering and venting, and save the filter for the stinky stuff like leather and acrylic, and just vent outdoors for wood and cardboard products. We can do that easily with the Compact Filter style filter. (Not sure how that was gonna work with the under-machine filter.)
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Thanks for the information
We are already looking into various other options. While finances are a primary concern; it isn’t a direct budget issue either. It’s more of comparing the time to cost ratio and was the product that was promised really worth the cost it was with how much time has gone by etc especially with the laughable switch to a different version of the Compact Filter. We don’t know what this new one will be price wise for the filters if it isn’t using the same filter system and so forth. All the thought processes that a small business should be taking into consideration when investing into anything.
We welcome any and all alternatives as far as venting goes. We don’t mind venting outdoors as that is what we mainly do anyways, but it’s more for when we take our Glowforge on trips to conventions and so forth.
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Oh, in that case just check to make sure the filter is going to keep the smells down adequately while it’s in use. (By the way, the Compact Filter does that perfectly, and I’d expect nothing less from the eventual Glowforge filter. But ultimately you need to decide what’s going to work for your business needs.)
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Hmm. This is a tough decision. My primary use case of the original filter was for teaching in my medical device class as a way to use it on the desk in the classroom. A compact filter on the ground is less awesome… Not sure I will keep it at this point. Need to keep going on the internal debate.
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Definitely less awesome. 
(It does work on the smells though. And I wasn’t going to be able to change the filter out without a couple of extra beefy young fellas hanging around here more than my husband would have liked, so it’s likely for the best for my situation.)
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I never did understand why anyone would want the original filter – It just seemed like bad design from the start. I can’t imagine having to move my Glowforge every time I needed to change the filter (even if I had enough space to do it!).
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Having the Blu-Dri for comparison, I found it easier to imagine the same guts in a different container, and the greater sanity of a drawer-like means of changing the filters. As they never settled on a final design, I held out hope that they would get there, and if Dan had hired me to design it that would have been my starting point.
I still think that if only the height was abandoned, a filter “table” with wheels that would lock when in use and filter access in the front would be a quite viable design.
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