Yeah supply line management is a mix of art and science. I doubt they’ll kick assembly into high gear until the power supply is fully qualified, possibly also various regulatory approvals of a production representative unit (I would hope that the laser tube is fully vetted by now). Last thing you want is a few thousand units assembled and then needing to replace something because it fails for some regulation or quality/reliability goals…
6 Likes
My supposition that you are a secret beta tester just lost a lot of credibility:disappointed:
5 Likes
Maybe he is playing the long con. 
9 Likes
Nah. There was a time where I had hoped to be a Beta Tester. Nothing’s changed except I’m just not excited about it anymore. I haven’t been able to sustain it without regular updates. Seeing stuff that folks make with one version of the GF or another or the fact that a GF shows up at MakerFaire is not what excites me. It’s cool and all but it’s does not in any way give me a sense of progress other than folks are really good at working with what they have. The fact that they spent an extraordinary amount of manpower going to MakerFaire is fine and expected. The fact that they do that and then say they’re too busy to post a monthly update moves me to go focus on more interesting non-Glowforge things.
10 Likes
Well, I hope that you don’t drop out because you will probably have some interesting GF experiences to share.
I’ve got a 3D printer and CNC lathe & mill to keep me occupied or I’d probably have asked for a refund by now. Waiting is not a huge issue for me as the GF will mostly for fun but I do feel for those that planned to make money with one.
1 Like
Same. You should pick up one of these chinese lasers. Theyre a lot of fun! Its been keeping me busy in the meantime!
4 Likes
And they make me look forward (and more excited about getting) the Glowforge!
2 Likes
I’m in complete agreement with you. My major concerns at this point are not even the lack of monthly updates. It’s the lack of communication on any sort of progress. I was hoping to see a working pass-through by this point. I understood the power supply issue didn’t significantly impede software development so I begin to wonder why pass-through isn’t ready yet. Three more weeks and I’ll have been on the forum for a year…
2 Likes
I’m still confident that Glowforge will be delivering a great product in a few months, but I do find their attitude toward progress updates annoying. If nothing else, they could provide a monthly (if not weekly) roundup of all the news that @dan has posted here and there in various threads on the forum. Not everyone has time to scour the forum for the random one sentence updates that are drowned out by all the other discussion here. (Any tidbits from their Twitter feed or Facebook page should also be included.)
2 Likes
from my understanding pass-through wont be complete by the time the units ship. Im hoping the 3d grayscale engraving will be done by then, because thats one of the main reasons I bought a glowforge to begin with. With all these code rewrites etc, im worried that it might not happen. Now that Ive had access to a laser, im getting more and more motivated to just build one myself in a very large format instead of waiting on the glowforge. The benefits of their software dont mean much when you dont have a laser to use…and to be honest I am thoroughly enjoying the crappy chinese laser I have already! We even cut fabric last night for some projects my girlfriend and her friends are working on.
5 Likes
Yeah, you guys want to know what other laser businesses want to know. And what they could share would be boring stuff like the 10thousandth laser energy output test.
If you guys want @Dan to just say “Everything is cool.” because “Nothing to report.” doesn’t do it for ya I am sure he would say it that way.
2 Likes
That’s my next project after my GF comes in. LightObject has enough bits to put together a really honking machine in the 80-100W range with 36" X 48" capacity (and pass thru) with Smoothie control. But it will cost me nearly what the GF Pro did so I’m going to wait until after the holidays.
Then I’ll get to go to my Makerspace meetings and announce “my name is Jim and I have a laser problem” 
5 Likes
You can probably piece that out a lot more cheaply than they have it listed, but they do look tempting! that 1200x900 is just about the exact size I would want for my CNC shelf.
2 Likes
I would actually find that very interesting. Just saying.
1 Like
Sweet eh? I’d be pulling the controller and beefed PSU from my franken-K40 but that frame they have would be nice to get pre-built (although I might source it locally - a friend has his own welding shop and could probably beat LO & shipping). I could end up with just LO’s optics and laser tube but the steppers & rails might be worth getting from LO just to reduce the ebay/Ali hassles if there’s an issue. I’ll use the open source LaserWeb project for the driving software and keep using Corel/AI for my design software.
Could make furniture with that sucker 
And the Z-axis capacity is drool-worthy.
4 Likes
stop talking me into it! hahah.
Id check out openbuilds part store or misumi for extrusions and additional parts. They both sell them pretty cheaply. Endstops are pretty simple to manage. Motors are pretty simple as well. I bet you could put it together (the frame) for half what they were charging.
I actually just got in a 12ft piece of aluminum extrusion today that only cost me $25. That stuff is dirt cheap.
4 Likes
The problem is that Dan goes way, way out of his way not to say “everything is cool”. All statements have been ambiguous or not at all. Nothing to report does not mean progress is being made. The folks in the forum are guilty of reading into dan’s statements stuff that just isn’t there. History has shown us that the Announcements page will never be changed because it doesn’t have to be. I believe in Glowforge more than not but the project is badly in need of a cheerleader that understands how to provide a warm and fuzzy, without sharing company sensitive info.
14 Likes
So now you’re convincing me
I do know that if the GF gets delayed again, I’ll be building the big one this fall while I wait. Although then I risk having the GF get relegated to kid use and backup machine. (Something my kids wouldn’t mind I’m sure.)
2 Likes
The only thing I would really be missing out on would be the auto-focus. Im sure its replicable, but not without great pain. Who knows… maybe someone will come out with an auto-focus module on the cheap =P
2 Likes
Might not be that terribly difficult. They’re commodity parts of smartphones now. Need to interface that to the software and then tie that to auto-Z control maybe(?). The Smoothie control board has 5 axis control capability - more than enough to handle the controls.
I’ll toss the idea to Peter for exploration for the next version of LaserWeb.