I’m sitting here while a test engrave does its thing on UrForge and because I’m a cautious fellow, I hop up every minute or two to peek in and assure a fire hasn’t started.
There have been LOTS of posts about setting up monitoring cameras and to-each-his-own but I don’t think I’ll doing that as it seems overkill for me to keep an eye on it. I don’t trust my luck to ever leave the room while it’s cutting. But I do need to keep hopping up, wasting valuable calories. At one point I thought I should move UrForge to a really low table so I could peer down into it from my seat at the desk. But I really like the table I built for it.
Then I thought, I really just need a mirror hanging over it and angled so I can see down into it from over here. Low tech and simple. Yes, you can say it: “Genius”.
So I’m going to try that and wondered if anyone else has tried something similar? I did a quick search of the forum but didn’t find anything.
Missing the obvious solution… mirror disco ball helmet. See, hanging a disco ball over the glowforge would require getting close to it in order to increase the angle of reflection enough to see into the glowforge… but wearing the disco ball around your head solves that problem.
What about using mirrored acrylic? Actually if you made a large disco ball with 12"x12" tiles you could probably see just about any direction.
Double benefit is we have lasers, you can easily cut mirrored acrylic into any shape needed.
If you chrome everything you’ll have the hexavalent chromium problem which, is problematic
Now, if you get a bunch of little mirror tiles and position them just so on half the room you’ll have some. Pair with a disco ball like @mpipes suggested and you’ll have a freaking masterpiece on your hands!
Consider how far away you are from the mirror, and how far the mirror is from the GF. Add these two numbers together. Walk that distance away from the GF. How much of what it’s doing can you see? I’d argue the mirror approach is likely going to add up to 10 or more feet. You may find that you need a big mirror and that other than confirming the GF hasn’t been stolen and that it doesn’t have flame shooting out of it, you might not derive much additional benefit.
If you’re going to hang a mirror from the ceiling, wouldn’t it be easier to hang a small wireless IP camera? Battery powered if there’s no convenient ceiling lamp you can tap for power? Pointed straight down at the GF and zoomed so the GF just fills the frame would be about as good as standing right over the machine. Less risky if you live in an earthquake prone area, too.
This is sort of what I do. My GF is in my basement workshop. There’s plenty of stuff nearby that’s taller than the GF. I have a wireless IP camera with PTZ positioned above and to the side of the GF. I can watch it from anywhere in the world pretty much (though usually a much less exotic place like the bathroom).
