Discussion of March 2018 Update

£463.53 for GF basic to UK for the main parcel today, so that’s less than expected :slight_smile: let me know if you have any other questions

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Thanks guys. Any info before we receive our Pro in Northumberland (UK) is greatly appreciated. Had a nice surprise with the date also moving from 6th April to 30th March so fingers crossed it doesn’t change back. Been a very long 2.5 years…

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only just learned that Glowforge does not use metric measurements? Have you left the house recently? The whole world is metric (including the US Pentagon), except the US and Liberia. The Axis of Inches is very short these days. You of all people still use the system of the people whose tea you threw into Boston Harbour! It’s not called the Imperial system for nothing.

Works ok as long as you buy rough timber from Home Depot, but for precision work the metric system is indispensible. Instead of weird fractions, you just move decimal points (or commas) to change units; weights and liquids use the same measurements (1 litre equals 1000cc, equals 1 kilogram, etc – and, by the way; water freezes at 0 degrees and boils at 100!).

I do hope a metric UI is imminent, or else the machine is useless for us here in Old Europe. Unless, of course, your clever president has imposed a tariff on the use of this system. But he probably doesn’t know it exists.

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that’s just to keep up the tradition of breaking every forecast and promise up to now. I have only been waiting 2 and a half years. I simply don‘t listen anymore. If a machine turns up, I’ll be surprised, even happily so. If not, it’ll be another Kickstarter fail. Some you win, some you lose.

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This morning my car said it was nine below. I’m thinking, it’s not that cold and the weather forecast couldn’t have been that wrong. Then I noticed it had somehow switched itself to Celsius. Probably because they put buttons on the steering wheel. Stupid buttons.

You are aware we only do it to irritate the rest of the world? That we occasionally bounce a spaceship off the Martian atmosphere is just the price we pay.

Look at it this way, when they eliminate the NHS to pay for Brexit having to divide by 25.4 will keep your mind agile. You’ll be lucky if it isn’t taxed as a benefit. :wink: Also, as I recall Dan said a SI option in the GFUI is on its way.

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I know. But I am still surprised about how unaware US businesses are about the rest of the world. If you design a product for the whole world, you should consider what they use abroad, meaning everywhere else. No wonder US exports aren’t what they could be. Just like the World Series isn’t one, the rest of us aren’t out there, but you are back there.

I use a duodecimal system every day (typesetting), but that’s because as a mechanical system it offers divisions of 2, 3, 4, and 6. But I would never build a new product based on the Imperial system alone. It’s not only arrogant, it’s counterproductive. If I had known this (and I didn’t even consider it), I would have never ordered a Glowforge. Too late – after waiting for almost 3 years, I may as well have it and use it as a paperweight or aquarium.

Just wanted to update and say that my shipping email date moved from March 15th to today (7th) and I just received my email a few hours ago.

Hope you get yours soon, Erik.

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BTW: I’m in Germany, not the UK. No NHS here and no Brexit either. The Brits are emulating you by being insular.

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Good news. Haven’t heard anything yet. But I’m in metric Germany. Seems that the former Axis of Inches gets served first.

Wooooaa there tiger. Not all of us voted leave.

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That sucks that it’s useless. You should just ship it to my address. Or make it an awesome aquarium. Maybe attach a shark to the gantry.

You input inches in one field. Design in whatever units you want. Holy hyperbole.

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The only places in the UI where inches are used are in the material thickness for non-Proofgrade materials and the focus height for a manual operation (which you don’t usually need to set, as it defaults to the material thickness.) So usually you don’t enter any measurements (if using Proofgrade) or you enter a single measurement (for non-Proofgrade). Just set your calipers to inches or divide your mm measurements by 25.4 until Glowforge updates their software to have a mm setting for that field.

Note that internally the code measures thickness/focus in mm; it only converts to inches when displaying the values. So it should be trivial for GF to modify it not to do the conversion. I’m sure they’ll get around to doing it soon.

Edit: there’s also the “lines per inch” measurement for engraving.

yes, all digital printing has been using these measurements, like 72dpi. But we do like rounding to 100s, or else we wouldn’t have 300dpi, which is a lie because 4 times 72 is 288.

Sorry, I read too much into the tea reference.

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It’s a wonder the rest of the world finds it worth trading with us seeing as how backward and archaic we are.

Wonder if there’s a measure of creative output (perhaps in terms of inventions or patents per capita) that might show us the superiority of that decimal system. Frankly it’s amazing we can tie our own shoes.

:grinning:

Velcro

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Was that invented by metricians? :wink:

I bought some laces yesterday. They were metric. So frustrated. Flip flops today.

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The Glowforge works fine in metric. I design in mainly in metric (being a part of the global engineering community, which is mainly metric), in Illustrator and Fusion360, and SVG’s all come in sized properly - so GFUI reads the metric units just fine.

Never resize anything in the GFUI, because it’s all visual, no units at all.

So the only non-metric unit is the material thickness, really used only for visually aligning cuts using the lid camera. And then it’s not just imperial units, it’s decimal inches, not fractions, so you just have to memorize the popular fractions. I only use three thicknesses (0.001 for paper, 0.125 for 1/8", and 0.25 for ¼"). Or if it really matters, use calipers and type in whatever they say. But if positioning really matters, use a jig so it’s repeatable.

Note that the actual laser focus distance is set by the distance sensor in the head so as long as the cut is placed well enough, even ‘material thickness’ doesn’t really matter.

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Thank you, that’s a relief to hear. Although decimal inches are the worst invention ever. The good thing about inches is the divisions offered in a duodecimal system: divide by 2,3,4 and 6, while in decimal there‘s only 2 and 5. That’s why we still use points and picas (or cicero in Europe) for setting metal type: all the not-printing material has to be made up of physical units which fill a given space. But for actual measuring, decimal inches are just weird and offer neither advantages of the decimal or duodecimal systems.