Art, if you are âmaking a profitâ DONâT POCKET the $ - Invest in a second back up glowforge, before the PRICE INCREASES. everyone on here can give you a discount for $500 off (of a Pro)
Jonathan
I seem to recall that now.
One of the prior outsourcers was based in TX, and perhaps someone picked up the remaining inventory.
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Glowforge is manufactured by Flex, Inc (formerly Flextronics). They have one or more production lines in Texas. From there, Glowforges used to be warehoused and fulfilled from Cynergy in Grapevine, Texas. They may have changed fulfillment partners at some point in the last few years; they definitely did for spare parts and Proofgrade materials. Someone speculated that either this was a former parts supplier to the factory and theyâre selling an old revision of parts that Glowforge opted not to buy, or Glowforge opted not to pay to relocate these parts when they moved to a different warehouse for fulfillment. Either way, itâs not an official channel.
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I know it is not a business machine, thatâs why Iâm comparing it with a similar hobbyist machine with a similar price range, quality and manufactured in the USA, in particular, the Hobby G5, that I know and own. I donât own a Muse, but I know it, and it is a direct competitor of Glowforge (price, power, functionality, etc).
Again, I like the glowforge, I like the technology, but I donât like not being able to do what I know is a simple procedure like changing the tube because it was designed this way from the beginning.
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Thanks for the advice, MacGeek.
Not, this machine is just for fun, not for business. Part of the fun (for me, I know we all are different), is doing mods and tinkering with the toys. I may not be able to do it with the glowforge.
Yeah, granted, I donât have all the context of previous years. I only have eight weeks of experience dealing with glowforge, while some of the users here have been since the beginning.
I guess many things have changed since then, and I bet when Dan Shapiro was the only executive in charge, many were different changed. And now that there are new (big names) in the Executive Team, many more things will change, and promises will be broken. That is what happens to successful companies, they grow and many lose their souls in the process (still recall that âdonât be evilâ from the -now- evil google).
Granted, feelings are no facts, but we all have our owns. Based on what Iâve experienced so far is that I donât feel good about the âcorporate valuesâ of glowforge. Iâm not trying to convince anyone to change their opinions, just expressing mine (a plus being in a community!). I appreciate reading otherâs opinions as add context to my (limited) knowledge.
All that said, if they are really eating a loss for changing the tube at $499, then it will end soon. It is just not sustainable, it will make stakeholders and investors unhappy and heads will run down. Suppose they lose only $100 per laser change, with 2 million of glowforge sold (according to their website), then they will need a laser swap every two years (average), that is 200 million - a number that will only increase and that will never stop. It is not about âbeing a good companyâ, but about being a viable company as well.
Edit: as per @rpegg mention, it is NOT 2million printers, but prints. The total money is lower, but the logic still the same (with the assumptions being true, which I DONâT know, only assume).
Yea, IN MY OPINION it was supposed to happen already with the price increases, but âpublicâ pressure kept them from doing it, and 6 months from now they will raise prices on it.
IN
MY
OPINION
Jonathan
You are right, my bad
It is ~2 millions PRINTS not Printers.
Ok, less money in bleeding then 
I guess the Franken Forge is of your own make
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Yup, it is not that a company is a sole person, but the combination of different policies, goals and decisions. Sometimes the structure makes the employees behave in a way not originally intended.
There should be a dialogue between the âcorporationâ and the consumers, beyond this discussion forum. I understand the forum was the how glowforge listened to the customer base in the past, but that is not true anymore. One way is by putting pressure in the issues that are important to the users, because otherwise that message will not get to make into a change (in policy, business practice, etc). That is not fighting or trashing the company, it is expressing a service/product that you want and youâre willing to pay for.
Of course, if such service or product is not of the interest of a good chunk of the base, then it will not be listened by anybody. Then, pressure is a measure of how many ppl really want it to happen (e.g., worth from the company to be listened)
I think itâs more likely that their decision to fully enclose the optics (so they donât have to be replaced every few months like in other lasers) contributes to the issue of us being able to service things ourselves. I think it was the right choice on their part â they saved us having to pay hundreds of dollars in replacement optics over the life of the laser, and at the same time committed to a tube replacement cost of $500 including shipping the machine for the service.
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You are right, in the end trade-offs are part of life.
I donât know other lasers, but I do know the old one I owned for 7-8 years before switching to glowforge (8 weeks ago). I never had to replace optics (or any other piece), only the laser tube once it degraded.
But there were other features of that brand that I didnât love, like their bulky, and ugly external cooling system. So at the end Glowforge âgoodâ features were more than the âbadâ ones.
I cannot think of a (unsolvable) technical reason why not to design the machine with a replaceable tube in mind. If I have to bet I would bet that they didnât take it into account in the initial design, and later it was not cost effective to change it. One reason to my guess is that the original promise was to have a replaceable tube.
Impossible to know, fun to guess (a.k.a. I have time to spare in speculative posts !).
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If one had 20-20 foresight I think that in making things âblack boxâ for easy use, should be modular with easy replacement of modules, as opposed to having this huge thing that had to be shipped back and forth at great expense and no profit to anyone. That would, however, take a lot more design time and they were late in getting out the machine to impatient folks as it was.
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Yeah, the âother laser companyâ (direct competitor of Glowforge), have designed a lot of machines, they have years of experience. They know a modular system is good, and they design with that in mind.
BUT also, years of experience works in their disadvantage, because they are accustomed to do build the cutters the same way as always. They never thought different, and they have the cooling and extraction system as an external component, which, in my case, is what made me switch brands. I hated to have an extractor and a compressor outside of my sleek laser, very noisy, ugly, and space consumer setup.
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That would turn me away as well 
I would be expecting a laser and not a fish tank 
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Hahaha yes, thatâs was the feeling! Actually, you need to keep a bucket of water, I forgot that; a fish tank indeed! 
Funny enough i am going thru the same thing and need a laser tube replacement. Waiting to get an answer from them about getting it in to get replaced.
@aumanjoi, I see you joined the forum in 2015, is your laser tube that old? I just want to know what to expect, since mine is fairly new (9th week)
Earliest Glowforge production units were delivered June 2017.
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