Are we the Bank?

Hmmm. Well let’s see. A laser cutter / engraver doesn’t assemble 3D magic. But it sure makes the parts that we can assemble into amazing things.
And typically an actual 3D printer doesn’t assemble anything of any particular instance either. Unless we (you guessed it probably) get involved. It looks like we are the Droid we are looking for.

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The word print comes from the latin word premere, which means to press, so it has nothing to do with additive creation. However, these days, ‘print’ has started to become synonymous with hitting a button and something you designed gets spit out.

If you think about other pressing machines, they usually use a die to imprint and cut materials. As glowforge is accomplishing a very similar procedure, only using light, Id say that Im actually OK with this term. Comparatively speaking some 3d printers arent really ‘pressing’ anything either, they are only melting/bonding, so it could be a more accurate description for the glowforge in this case.

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A few years ago I attended a working group dealing with cyber security. The chair and several senior members spent a full hour trying to come up with a good name for the working group. Apparently they wanted it to stand out in Pentagon reports. Told them I would be back when they were ready to discuss technical issues. (just poking fun)

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Personally, I’m fine with 3D printer…but it’s interesting to me and I enjoy reading others thoughts about it.

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A rose is still a rose by any other name… I understand that the description can be a little misleading, but it’s kinda hard not to see that it’s just a laser. burns stuff. cuts stuff. they can call it Susan for all I care as long as i can burn stuff. and cut stuff lol :smiley:

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“I’m going to go home and rethink my life”

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Shirley you must be joking.

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Star Forge Haiku

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I suppose Christian Reed would consider me a fool. I’ve got no CNC background, no fabrication or prototyping background, and no real design background.
I didn’t do much research before impulse buying on pre-order. We stole from our emergency savings.
Reed would have been more cautious and would wait to see the results after Glowforges ship.
I haven’t backed many crowd funds and I’m almost never an early adopter.
Over the past few months I have spent a lot of time on the forums, so I’m not quite as uninformed as I was. I’m still a newb.
He was putting out his review as fast as he could; and he was and is entitled to give out advice to err on the side of caution.
I’m delighted that I neither saw nor complied with his recommendation. I am happy to have paid $2000 to wait more than a year to get this 3D laser printer. The big six-month delay that has upset many backers actually alleviates some of the concerns that Reed outlines.

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Thank you for your faith in us. We’re working hard to make the product you expect from us.

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IDK, but my glowforge does not do what they promised. It can only handle a TINY svg file, it can only cut inside a 11x19 area, not 12 x 20, it’s making “broken” noises and wanting to be calibrated all the time, and now I see I can’t return it? I just went from cautiously optimistic to a disgruntled customer with a very expensive shiny paperweight.

If you didn’t buy yours from someone else and were a patient GF pre-order, then they would have told you that the current cutting size limit is 19.5x11" before you agreed to have them ship it now vs waiting until that was updated to the advertised 20.4"x11.5".

If you can’t do more than a tiny SVG then you should post to Problems & Support (or email Support directly) with normal or large ones as that seems to be an issue. Everyone else is having success with SVGs that result in projects as long as 3hrs + in execution length so more than tiny should be expected.

Posting it in Problems & Support and including the files you’re having issues with may actually be faster as there are lots of folks who will grab the file and see if it’s a file problem vs. a GF problem.

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If by broken noises, you mean it goes to the side of the unit and then makes some horrible noises that sound like it is going to break the motors, this is changed today. As a side note, those are the stepper motors and they are driven magnetically so no damage was/is being done. If it is a different “broken” noise, please contact support.

Calibrating when the unit is turned on is normal. Calibrating more often than that does sometimes happen. Calibrating a lot has only happened to me twice and not at all in the past month and a half. They seem to have this under control now and I would report to support.

If a (properly working) glowforge is not right for you, a couple of people have sold theirs. Glowforge support appears to have been helpful in transferring ownership to the new buyers. FYI - if you do contact support, glowforge has stated to either email or post in Problems & Support. Doing both may cause delays in matching/combining tickets.

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“were a patient GF pre-order, then they would have told you that the current cutting size limit is 19.5x11” before you agreed to have them ship it now vs waiting until that was updated to the advertised 20.4"x11.5".
Actually I just re-read all the info they sent and they did NOT say that anywhere… until I contacted support saying what is going on… and they said oops we are sorry we didn’t tell you that till now.

I was patient. Now I’m feeling like this thing is a just a diy toy. Why would you make something advertising everywhere that it has a 12 x 20 bed, when you never intended to even cut that size?

mine is doing exactly that… if you say it’s fixed, mine isn’t.

and it calibrates every time I touch it… ever time I move something in the bed to a different spot, every time i open and close… its annoying.

I did contact support. I just thought that after the 2 years of waiting I was going to get something comparable to my Universal laser… and it’s not. I was excited about this, but now I’m just left feeling incredibly disappointed.

When you filled out the web form with your address you should have had to click through a page that listed the state of various features (which parts are done, which parts aren’t ready yet) and one of the things on that page was an explanation of the current limits on the usable area of the bed.

Unfortunately there’s no way to get back to that page once you click past it, so a lot of people click past it without reading it, under the assumption that they can go back and look at it later, but you can’t. :cry:

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We are here to help. As James said, If you post a file you want to run here, we can look at it and help. I am interested in a file other than a small one that won’t run for you. Between the forum users and support, we can determine if there is a problem with your machine.

From the home page, the FAQ link has a ‘Tech Specs’ link on the sidebar that lists the bed size.
Sorry you experience thus far has been frustrating, but there are other users here who own other lasers, with Universal among them. From their experience, I would expect yours to be better than it has been.
If you can give us some more specific information, like a file that won’t run for you I’ll bet we can help!

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If you go back and read what you agreed to when you told them to send it to you, you’d know that right now the effective cutting area is 19.5"x11". It also noted that they’re working on making the cut area larger - it’s a software constraint due to the need to accelerate & decelerate the motors. (It was smaller earlier this year and has already been expanded at least once.)

To characterize them as “never intending it to even cut that size” is unfair and uninformed.

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They only announced it today, so maybe yours hasn’t received the sw update yet. All I know is mine stopped doing it. Considering yours is constantly calibrating, it’s probably best to wait for support.

They have shipped faulty units. They’ve shipped faulty units to some of the heaviest users of this forum. It sucks.

@jamesdhatch is also an owner of a Universal (or one of the expensive American made ones). He has certainly been converted to the glowforge. I’m not saying you’ll feel the same way he does, but once the issues are sorted, and the rocky start is in the past, maybe you’ll wind up liking it. If not, I don’t think you’ll be stuck with it. I sincerely believe you’ll be able to sell it without a serious, if any, loss beyond time and frustration. Sorry for your experience so far.

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