Hi, I live in the middle of nowhere and am forced to use satellite internet that is sketchy at times, will glowforge buffer if the connections gets interrupted or slows way down? Thanks, can’t wait to get one!
Tom
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Yes. If it’s a small job, the GF will download it completely and losing internet access wouldn’t affect the cutting. For larger jobs, it’ll download it in chunks as it goes. If your internet cuts out, it’ll finish out what’s in the buffer and automatically wait for access to be restored.
Yes the Glowforge has an internal cache that holds a buffer, and potentially the entire cut/engrave operation depending on the complexity. If there is still more to do when the buffer runs out the Glowforge stops and waits for a connection to resume cutting.
I don’t know if the cell network is better where you are than your internet but you could use a phone hotspot if needed.
I would imagine (but I could be wrong) that the cell reception, especially for data, may be poor. That was why my friends in CO went with satellite internet. At the time, I was able to get edge network and occasional 3g on my phone, so I stayed with cell data. Their initial sat setup was on par with my cell in terms of reliability and usable bandwidth, but way more expensive. Since then, a new satellite provider (exede) has come onto the market, and my friends upgraded to that. It is much more reliable than their old service, and they are now capable of watching netflix and making voip calls at the same time. Still painfully expensive compared to broadband cable, but much much better service than the old hugesNet. @tom if your satellite service is older you may want to check into the newer offerings
Thanks for all the feed back, I will definitely check out exede! HN was our only option and cell service is spotty here too.