So I headed over to the new support section tonight because I received an overheated warning (and my button turned orange). I was clicking around and landed at the “Learn by Doing: Your First Prints” section. I noticed that the screen capture of the founder’s ruler print yields a time of 5:45. I checked back into my logs and my founder’s ruler took 6:05. I know its not much time difference but shouldn’t these be the same? especially if I didn’t rotate it. So that got me wondering if every glowforge is slightly different or if its a fluke. — thoughts as I wait for my GF to cool down —
6 Likes
It’s probably the power changes they’ve made. I’ve noticed that several of the settings I used on Day 1 (just over a week ago) no longer work the same.
7 Likes
Holy cow! You keep a log at that level of detail? (I’m impressed.)
Looks like they ramped up the speeds.
7 Likes
It is probably because you placed it in a different place on the bed.
6 Likes
I thought that might have had something to do with it. If I remember correctly it was closer to the corner than center. Can’t move as fast over there. It was just interesting because if calibration is done at the factory with the tube in the unit there could be slight differences that can associated with each machine that are corrected via software in the cloud.
1 Like
yup. log every print. I have a google form that I fill out which tracks:
- Date
- Time
- Job description
- whether it’s proofgrade or not
- material
- score power and speed
- cut power and speed
- engrave power, speed and resolution
- comments
It has coming in handy to be able to look back at settings but with the regular updates they might become more like places to start. It also has a sheet with statistics where it will add up durations and give me a warning when I’ve cut 40 hrs worth - time to clean!
27 Likes
Excellent idea!
2 Likes
Wow, great idea! I need to do that. Or at least, try.
2 Likes
I might be able to ‘share’ it for people to implement. Let me see.
7 Likes
That would be fantastic!
1 Like
That’s brilliant, actually.
That’s a great idea, I’m now inspired to go grab one of my notebooks and put it on my laser table.
I think I figured a way to port it to anyone who want it. I’ll try and share it tonight. It would also be cool for people here to shape it into something better!
5 Likes
eek! I don’t have bed position in my log for speed/power/etc settings for my projects.
I understand orientation (e.g. horizontal ruler engraving vs vertical ruler engraving movement) causing differences, but does position within the same orientation impact time (e.g. left side middle vs. center of bed vs right side front)?
Mine’s an excel spreadsheet. I also include the colors in the job and settings by color as well as if I’m using a preset PG setting. But I don’t add up the time to warn me about the 40 hour cleaning, mostly I let it get dirty or it starts to cut less efficiently 
6 Likes
This is a great idea!!
well, doesn’t the head move more slowly near the edges, for one?
3 Likes
That’s true. I don’t do much edge cutting - the no-go zone wouldn’t let me for so long that I haven’t bothered to move my GF ruler (I keep it against the left edge of the crumb tray to give me a straightedge for the left side of my material) so I didn’t think much about the edge speed reduction being a factor.
1 Like
I was going to do it in excel but I really like the idea of being able to access it anywhere - much like the Glowforge App. I have another sheet which has my material inventory which comes in handy when ordering (especially when I’m not home)
I will also admit that I have cleaned mine before the 40 hr mark. I still like having it alert me because then I can make sure I do a thorough cleaning. I figured you can’t clean it too much, as long as you’re careful.
1 Like
You too? (Man I feel like a piker now - all I record is the power/speed/FP settings that work for a particular material, and that tends to be on Post-it notes stuck all over the desk.)
Yeah, it’s not the best system, but it’s worked so far. I lose one once in a while to changes to the system, but I’m expecting that to happen now. (Need to finish compiling that one of these days I guess.) 
3 Likes
I have a WD personal cloud installed at home. All of my files go there. I can access them from anywhere on any device. I keep the Excel sheet open on one monitor and the GFUI in the other. Since I have to wait anyway, once I hit Print, I update the spreadsheet.
Then I eat cookies.
6 Likes