And here's the muse

Everything Else
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To be a laser one doesn’t even need the mirrors. X-ray lasers don’t use mirrors. For all lasers we might encounter, mirrors are part of the package.

For the general reader note that a lot of the optical qualities of a laser are determined by the length of the resonant cavity (such as the coherence length) and the shape of the mirrors (most are slightly concave to make it easier to align the mirrors). Also all lasers have some divergence, none are strictly ‘collimated’. How well collimated it is is dependent on characteristics of the resonant cavity, the width and shape of the mirrors, and probably lots of other factors. If you look at the specs for a commercial laser you’ll find the size of the waist and the divergence and lots of other wonderful physical attributes of the beam.

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62

I guess I meant the distance from the lens to the focal point of the laser, would likely be beyond an adustable distance to be useful if one were remove the bottom and pass the item underneath. Apparently they are moving the lens up and down, and may have more adjustment available than the Glowforge.

I’m surprised they aren’t doing autofocus. That was a key feature in my decision. So was continuous autofocus, for that matter.

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63

I think all other lasers with adjustable focus manage more than 0.4". I don’t think the GF will ever do continuously variable focus. It doesn’t seem feasible with the current hardware.