Amen! I can’t wait to get Glowforge units in your hands and everyone else’s to see what you can craft with them.
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Looks great Spike. What program are you using?
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He’s using Rhino 5.0
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I use solidworks daily for work and it kinda has a 3d slicing software. Under File there is a Print3D tab. Buts its unruly and doesn’t let you do support or modify the fill parameters of your build. But I haven’t fiddled with it much. There are several good , free slicing software out there. A quick google will point you in a good direction. Just save as a STL and slice away.
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I was finishing the making of a cheesecake the other day and my wife said “we should cut a gingersnap to look like a leaf.” I’m holding the thin disk of a cookie in my hand, looking at it when it hits me… “Why don’t I have my Glowforge yet?!?” Mine will certainly run the gammut from acrylic to wood to food! My wife even went and picked up a stack of chipboard from someone who was going to throw it away just so that we would have it for “testing” purposes!
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Food first, then follow the rest. 
Sorry Dan, when the beta unit is Ready for shipment?
Thank you!
Then… yesterday I made some homemade marshmallow… and I’m looking at this sheet of gooey candy sitting in front of me… I could laser cut shapes and toast the edges at the same time!!! I think that from now on we need to look at everything we do and say HWGFDT? (How Would GlowForge Do That?)
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I am anxious to see if I get chosen. I’m in Silverdale right near Seattle. I have materials already stocked up & can’t wait to receive my machine. I would absolutely love to help test for you.
Make sure to read the threads on food use. From what i have seen they don’t recommend using your GF on both food and plastic.
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Thanks for the heads up. I’ll be sure to read up on the subject.
I was considering signing up for BETA, but I’m still gearing up for receiving the actual GF So I will leave it to others better suited and situated to make things happen.
Beyond that, I can’t wait to hear HOW the Beta goes and what bugs and issues were found. All of this brings us even closer to getting this magic box to us all, I’m supper excited! 
I did not apply for the beta as I am limited on time this time of year. I know there was mention of a private beta tester only forum. Any shot that folks who have purchased a Glowforge but are not beta testers could be granted read only access to this forum (if it exists)? Would love to learn from the process that others are taking.
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Too many things can be taken out of context and cause problems on the web.
For example: If a beta tester were to say something like" My GF unit prints Micky Mouse every time I start it" (joke btw). That statement could end up on another site as "GF units print Micky Mouse every time they start!
So, it’s not that they don’t want to share, because they do. It’s that they can’t because it will kill production time.
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Don’t see how this would slow down the process. I think it would be nice for us all to be a part of the process if we can’t be testers. I don’t think many invested blindly. We have been reading all the comments good and bad and we still decided to invest because of the openness from the GF team among other reasons. Personally, I am even more optimistic than when I purchased. It would benefit the investors to understand the process . Might even give us some insight before the final product arrives.
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If the CEO has to spend all his time chasing down bad info about what was taking out of context because “beta” info went to the media, that will in fact slow down the process. Trust me on this, I have felt the effects of this first hand.
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Not sure i agree with the analysis, Spike. We all signed up for a bit of an unknown… I doubt anyone willing to pony up the cash on the promise of a product 4-6-10 months later is NOT going to be unreasonable with their publicly posted analysis.
Edit: Accidentally a word.
Beta users will be able to post on the regular forums too. But we’re asking a lot of them, so the least they can do is get a quiet place to commiserate about it.
And @spike’s right that it helps us divide our time better if we don’t have to deal with panicked “Wait, I just read it doesn’t do X in your forum!” emails every day.
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Have the beta users been chosen already? If not, is there an estimated date for those emails to go out?
Ok, so I’m not sure when I started doing this, but I’ve been logging in the back of my subconscious mind a (small) list of Glowforge owners that I would pick (without seeing the applications and without regard to location) to be beta testers. This is just a tentative list and by no means a recommendation, just who I’ve felt would be really beneficial to the development of the GF and its software:
@spike
@jacobturner
@jkopel
@rpegg
@marmak3261
and @morganstanfield
That’s just based on the majority of the posts I’ve had time to read. If I didn’t mention you, this doesn’t mean I don’t think you should be a beta tester (not that I get to choose anyway 
) but you guys really stand out to me as good choices. There, my two cents just off the top of my head 
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