@peter_eduard, welcome. I’m curious to know, and I believe this will help us get perspective on the group, you have excellent qualifications and experience. If you care to answer, why is it just now you have joined the forum? It’s been fairly small until lately. As someone with no laser experience, I have to rely on the knowledge of others to assist me in preparing for my Glowforge. So I am just sponging here a lot and helping where I can. Thanks.
Thanks for that- good to keep in mind that it won’t be all fun and games. Still totally signing up!
If I get a Beta unit at my home in Seattle, maybe you can help me test it!
It’s just basically been a very tough couple of months, workwise. I have just been hanging in. Had a fire in my workshop (started by a laser cutter, incidentally - don’t cut cardboard without taking fire precautions!) - so several items were delayed because they had to go to a paint shop for a new coat.
Now thinks are slowly starting to come together, and I have had time to go through all the stuff I parked - including the original registration for this site (and yes, I had forgotten the password in the meantime).
Also - it felt like you had your stuff in order. Pictures look very professional - so I kind of thought that you were set.
Happy to see that you are open for inputs!
Best wishes,
Peter.
I’m in Kirkland. I’ll be happy to help you. 
I have a wood shop, lots of material and ideas for small boxes, craft items, etc.
I also want to use the Glowforge to create templates for routing out furniture parts.
Already signed up, but didn’t include much regarding what I intend to do with the machine.
Omg this forum makes me feel ancient do I know where I’m posting no! But Dan if you are monitoring I’m in … You need my demographic in your beta testing ESP a continental European English speaking one to boot!
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Application is submitted! Would love to be able to help the cause in any way I can! Hopefully a technician background could be of some assistance! Also I am overflowing with ideas of projects I would like to create! I can’t wait to share them!
I like how GF is doing this. There’s bound to be some obscure but hugely useful functionality that’ll emerge out of this. Power of the crowd.
As a Manufacturing Engineer, my whole life is process and documentation. I even have my latest work project out with beta testers myself. I have a houseful of budding engineers and crafties who could give this thing a real diverse testing atmosphere. We already have a long list of projects lined up once the laser arrives whether it’s Beta or not. Also, I am a daily user of Solidworks with a personal license for home use as well. Does anyone know if Solidworks has a slicer built in, or do I export to a separate program for slicing 3 dimensional models? I’ll need to look into this a little further.
Hi @brownboxenterprises, did you fill out the Beta application? If not, click on the title of this post, and you’ll find the link Dan’s original post.
I bet you’re a shoe-in! 
Yes, I filled out the application last night. Thanks
Any idea how many people put their hand up to be a Beta?? I’m just curious… Also, any idea how many units they are going to be testing…
Lets pretend maybe a dozen Beta units. But who really knows? Over a thousand people have clicked the survey link. No clue how many applications.
Thinking in general about response rates, if 1100 folks have clicked that link so far, I’d guess perhaps 10% actually went through the process. If they set aside a few dozen beta units to the right folks I bet they’d get a nice cross section of users and garner great feedback. I don’t think they’d send out too many more than that, because that would be too much work to manage, considering the volume of reporting they’d have to sort through everyday.
According to the Glowforge twitter feed they had over 100 completed application after the first day.
I reckon the glowforge will be easier to navigate than thus site, just a thought take out designer blue/cyan and increase font size …
. uK saying reversed SIBSTIance
As I recall, Solidworks can print straight to a wide range of 3D printing firmwares. So it has to have a slicer in it in some regard. But I have never seen it output a sliced result to carry manually to a different printer control.
It’s really exciting to see all the new faces here! This thread has quite a bit going on, but I’d encourage everyone new to look around and join some of the other discussions on this site. And be sure to look out for the people with “Regular” next to their names - they’re some of the most knowledgeable experts on the site, and their posts have a lot to add.
If you haven’t already, be sure to scroll up and check out the first post here, which has everything you need to be considered!
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By the way, we have about 740 applications so far. For the most part I won’t be providing details on the volunteer program to those who aren’t hosting beta units, but I want everyone to know that if you’re not chosen, it’s not personal… there are just a lot of people to choose from.
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