Discussion of October 2021 Update

I’ve had some Adafruit LEDs and conductive thread for quite a while. I’m still enthused about it, but havne’t done anything with them, yet.

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Adafruit is my go to. Their thread does well for hand sewing and certain machines. Digikey also has some good ones that are more fiber blended base. Digikey is better when wanting to keep flow with fabric but Adafuit is stronger. Either way, I love Adafruit. They have cool tips like to use clear nail polish with conductive thread. Turns out its also really useful to keep in your toolkit. That saved me on this design with a sunflower base and then wanted to add the effect of lightning bugs and used all adafruit stuff:

Perfect timing for Halloween designs.

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Love that expansive sunflower border. I don’t use my sewing machine anymore, so hand sewing will be my go-to. Adafruit is amazing, alright. I’m an oddity on the forum in that Halloween is not one of my things.

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I just like the fall :slight_smile: Plus discount candy on 11/1

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Thanks for the reply! Can you send me a message, I have a question about the home/work life balance, my wife is considering applying for customer service and wondering about the scheduling.

Ditto on this question - madly crossing all digits!

Is there any chance that Hobby Lobby would become a distributor of Glowforge proof grade? That is our go to place for supplies.

something else I’ve requested before, a setting for baltic birch since we all use the stuff

Jonathan

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I’d love to see this too, but since plywood varies greatly from mill to mill, I’d bet we’ll never see official settings. 20 lb paper and cardboard (in the two specific thicknesses for which there are published settings) don’t vary as much, so they’ve been able to create consistently-useful settings. Just don’t see this happening for any ply they don’t source directly.

From what I’ve seen, about 80% of the users that say they use Baltic birch are really using plain ol’ birch plywood. One recent example was the user that insisted they were buying Baltic birch in 4 x 8 sheets from HD.

Edit: Marine BB plywood comes in 4x8 sheets from some “real” woodyards. My bad.

Btw, I use the maple plywood settings for both varieties and have never had a failure. YMMV, of course.

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You can buy marine grade baltic birch in 4x8 sheets. A local wood yard carries it. It’s real BB, alternating grain direction plies of birch all the way through. That said, the 5x5 rule is a good one. And you can automatically discount anyone claiming to have bought BB for their Glowforge at Home Depot, since Home Depot simply doesn’t carry it, in stores or online.

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Next time you hide things, use the camera on your phone for some quick and dirty “note taking” on where each piece was hidden!

A friend of mine took my wooden fall leaf puzzle, tied a candy to each piece, and hid them around the house for Halloween last year. Would have sucked if they forgot where any of those were! :joy_cat:

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I used medium draftboard without issue for 1/8 bb. I think it’s a bit faster than medium maple and cuts through with less charging. It’s my preferred setting for it. I’ve got a basic, so not sure how it would vary between a pro.

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That’s their call, and it cannot hurt to email the company and request it!

Me too! Lenore’s a friend (and Glowforge owner) and just a fantastic person. I’ve been so excited to see them succeed.

Please email jobs@glowforge.com - that will get her in touch with someone who knows the answers better than I do!

We’ve found too much variation between materials for a single set of settings to work. I believe that’s due to different glue products used. Also note that thinner plies (like BB) mean more glue, which is slower to laser. So many plies is better for cabinetry, but fewer plies are better for lasering.

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I’m not a Halloween person either, at all. I hate all the decorations and horror movies that come out this time of year. Where we live, we don’t have trick or treaters, so we don’t even have to buy candy, which suits me just fine. I do love regular “fall” decorations, however, and now having a GF will make this year really fun.

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I think I need to GF some fake candy. My daughter has been watching Halloween videos and is suddenly very into Halloween this year. She’s walking around all the time with a toy shopping basket coming up to us repeatedly saying, “Trick or Treat!” I want to see her face when I hand her a pretend candy for her basket. LOL

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I have been receiving emails from Michael’s announcing Glowforge all week. I thought it was spam initially.

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20# paper? maybe not that much (it varies a lot more as the weight goes up).

but cardboard? that varies a lot. thickness, density of the top/bottom sheets, density (side to side weave and thickness) of the corrugation.

even amazon boxes have started to vary more. especially now that they’re putting advertising on the outside.

Obviously. What I should have said was that there’s not a significant variance in corrugated cardboard in the two specific thicknesses for which there are published settings. Note I said “significant” – don’t know if you were part of that beta test, but those settings were tested and deemed suitable for inclusion in the official settings. QED.

even if you leave out thickness, there can be a lot of variation in density. the weave, the actual paper sheet thicknesses, etc. i’ve held two sheets of cardboard that are the same thickness/size and the weight can difference is obvious if you hold it in your hand. you can get away with a lot because it’s not a super hard to begin with. so you can “overcook” it a bit and it’s still not a big deal. and i think that’s part of the point,

true BB is generally consistent enough that i’ve rarely had to change settings (which, like most, i just use maple PG ply). and the majority of the time it’s because there is a flaw in the BB, not because the settings are off.

so, just like cardboard, there’s some chance based on composition of material, there’s a chance you’ll have to tweak settings. but i think it’s possible to give at least 1/8 BB settings and know they’re going to work the vast majority of the time (like cardboard and copy paper).

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Please consider carefully before deciding to do any joint venture with Hobby Lobby. They are well known for mixing their politics and religion with their business.

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