I didn’t like having to wait so long, but I am very pleased with my Pro unit so far.
I back a lot of crowd funded things, I am used to them all being delayed/late. I expect it. So far my track record is pretty darn good for getting the product eventually, or getting a refund.
I never understand the people that get so vile and negative. What does it accomplish? If you are that mad, just ask for a refund and move on, otherwise wait for your unit to eventually come and be happy with a fine machine.
It might be that the cheerleaders are just more able to be happy with what they have, instead of being unhappy that they don’t have what they’ve been promised.
As has been said, the Glowforge is capable of being used, and I suppose in a certain sense that’s pretty cool, really. Maybe the people who can be happy about that are better than us nay-sayers who are concerned about the things we don’t have…
I dunno, it’s hard for me to be too thrilled with “some” when I was charged, and paid, good money for “awesome”.
I have a finite amount of energy a day and a finite number of days on this earth. Being negative, pissed off, etc is a waste of both of those things, in my eyes. Been there, done that. A couple of times. Once professionally, once personally. Woke up one day and said WTF am I doing? I still get upset, or pissed off - but I don’t attempt to drag others down with me and I get over it and on with my life ASAP.
Maybe its barely usable if you want to etch your portrait on the surface of the moon, or if you want to threaten Mr. Bond with it – but I would say it is beyond just “usable” by several orders of magnitude and I have been able to do everything I have wanted to do with it and I am just scratching the surface.
But then again, it has been intimated here that I might be getting paid to say that I’m afraid at my rates, they couldn’t afford me, and there are a number of others here who would be far more expensive than I.
I feel like the unit I got delivered on the promise they made. It’s super easy to use and very capable.
Sure you can nitpick certain details, but overall to me it delivers and is awesome.
Maybe my expectations are lower than most, but outside of a few quirks (which I expect will be fixed), I’ve had no problems with either the hardware or software. This is a hobby machine for me, though, so maybe that’s part of the difference.
In case @dan is reading this, I will work for Proofgrade. If others are being “incentived” for positive reviews, I’m hurt that no one’s approached me. You know where to find me. (/sarcasm for those unable to see it)
I’m pretty sure that my free store credit for posting good things about the Glowforge will come at about the same time as that check I am supposed to be getting as a paid protester.
How happy you are with the software is going to be coloured by what you are used to using as well. How many people over the moon about how the glowforge software works are experienced with proper industrial laser software? Or CNC CAM programs? (Not being elitist, just illustrating the differences) I know Hirudin has experience with top of the line CNC software and machinery so there are going to be different levels of what he expects vs someone just getting their first piece of cnc machinery.
Personally I can’t believe that there is no accurate way to place a cut on the bed. And no cutting a template to hold your piece and re-running with the file doesn’t count. That is placing your material accurately on the bed to match where it happens to cut. But that is because I am used to a cnc machine with home switches and a known zero ect so it bugs me. If you aren’t used to that or that type of person then the guess, check, adjust method might be fine.
I’m well experienced with Solidworks and CamWorks from design to manufacturing. LinuxCNC (a free opensource project) is amazing robust and stable.
My homebuilt CNC machine is extremely reliable and repeatable.
^^^this
From a machinist perspective, the fact that there is absolutely no way to precisely fixture a part is extremely limiting in this machine’s usefulness - to me at least.
For the casual hobbyist, I suppose these are not big issues. It all depends on your use case.
If you are making engravings of cats - probably not that worried about it. If you are trying to cut precision parts, or make repeatable precision cuts in parts that have already been cut (through a different process, for instance) - no joy.
So, for the moment, I stand by my “barely usable” view, for me.
(And, that view is not held because I am grumpy and like to waste my time on being negative. It is my realistic viewpoint based upon the current usability of the machine for my intended purposes.)
You probably know this, but I’ll say it in an attempt to be helpful. You can get precision placement using jigs cut from cardboard or tape marks lased with placement guides. I know that is not a solution for everybody and I expect it to change.
You are welcome to maintain your opinion. I just wanted to make sure you were aware of that. Carry on!
I am aware of that. However, that only supports my personal view of “barely usable”.
It is a workaround to address a (current) shortcoming of the product (like the homing problem is “fixed” by manually giving it an assist). Plus, that “fix” is only realistically usable in a very small number of use cases.
Having to spend my time to implement a number of fixes to overcome the deficiencies of the product decreases the product’s usability to me.
What software and file format are you using? I rarely get an error anymore. I learned a lot about how to clean up files before uploading them, and it has made all the difference. I use svg files almost exclusively.
2 limit switches. Maybe $5 total. Why on earth did they choose optical alignment as a primary, and not a backup? Those times the head gets lost? The limit switches could have been used as a backup. It would have also given us a method for absolute addressing for instances where it makes more sense to do alignment by x,y. I’m sure it has to do with camera alignment, but right now, that’s barely working.
I shake my head every time I hear a calibration or alignment issue. It’s a very Apple move, to be on the bleeding edge of a design, and pushing a design through, because someone at the top is stuck on pushing a certain design element.
I’m afraid at my rates, they couldn’t afford me, and there are a number of others here who would be far more expensive than I.
