Glowforge Features promised / delivered

Added :slight_smile: Keep an eye out for more.

A big limitation they say they are addressing is there is a limit to how big a job can be. I.e. a limit on complexity rather than physical size, and people are bumping into it quite often. My guess would be it currently has to all fit in the GF buffer and they haven’t implemented multi-buffer jobs. Dan said this was the case some time ago in a discussion of what happens if you lose internet connection during a job.

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Ok I updated this as well. Keep any other items coming.

The full 1/2" focal range, it is currently limited to 0.433".

Control of the air assist fan.

Ability to engrave from back to front instead of front to back to reduce staining.

The last two are in the hopper, not the original spec.

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Can you link to where they were promised? I don’t want to add things that they said they would like to do, but never said they would do.

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Don’t put too much faith in The Hopper. If something goes in the hopper, it just means that it is a good enough idea to receive more consideration later. It still has to be practical, and it has to win a battle of priorities.

Lots of things in the hopper will turn out to be difficult to implement, or will benefit too few users, and will never get made.

Lots of good ideas that are practical and beneficial will lose to ideas that are more practical and beneficial.

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yeah, the “hopper” is not a “promised feature.” it’s a, “hey, that’s a good idea, we’ll put it on the list and see if we can implement it eventually” list.

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True but the two examples: engrave direction and air assist fan speed are not difficult to implement. I think every other laser cutter has them in one way or another so they should be expected.

but if this list is “promised vs delivered,” they don’t really belong if they weren’t promised. whether you think they’re not difficult isn’t really relevant.

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Yes they are definitely in another category of promise as the others are on the front page marketing. The focus range is in the detailed specs though.

Autofocus

Completely Internal 
  — Lens moves internally up and down inside the head to focus on materials up to 0.5” (13mm) thick

I can make an extra section for “hopper” items if you guys want, but I don’t see those as promised.

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Some are just good ideas and nice to have but these two are missing functionality for a basic laser cutter. I would be surprised if they don’t get implemented but they don’t need to be listed here as there are plenty of things from the main page missing. In fact all the revolutionary features are either not implemented at all or not working properly.

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Detail them specifically and link to where it’s promised and I will add it to the list. Then it will be easy to see if there is progress being made.

Scott, where are you keeping this list? Thanks

Well put. Hopper is a list of customer suggestions, not a list of work we’ve indicated is forthcoming.

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I like that you guys take suggestions and curate them into the development process. I hope you guys keep doing that. It would be great if there was a list of the hopper items somewhere and the team’s thoughts. But taking suggestions, isn’t promising implementation.

Are there any items in the first post you feel are incorrect or have been delivered?

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I understand your question was directed at Dan, but the ‘multi-pass 3D engraving’ - using ‘map power to grey’ and manual engrave settings, several passes have produced sculptured engraves for me.
Wouldn’t that qualify?

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To me, it is all automagic. :sunglasses:
I don’t really see how it could be more so. Choose map to grey and number of desired passes… Unless it were possible to program desired finished geometric dimensions.

Edit; unless I’m thinking about it wrong, and the issue is being able to engrave dimensional objects, like the curve of a laptop.

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  1. 3D high-res engraving

Engrave complex, three dimensional curves with 1,000 DPI resolution. To get perfect detail and sculpt with real depth, Glowforge can carve away material with multiple passes, each one focusing more deeply than the last.

Isn’t there currently a 3D engrave mode that is not enabled?

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