I’m really excited about the glowforge and need to brush up on lasering before I get it (next year sometime) so i thought I’d share this pdf I found for some general information. I know it’s with a different machine but for newbies like me it would be a good idea to understand how lasers work, rastering vs vector cuts, and engraving, and materials do’s and don’ts.
I’m wondering if the Glowforge does the color coding thing to differentiate between cuts, and engravings, raster and vector and if they have that ordering black, red, green, yellow, blue, etc. order for cuts.
In one of the Tested videos @Dan talks about using colors to do that. I think he mentioned being able to customize what the colors do/ordering etc. So, yeah, I think so.
Correct–you can designate what each color means prior to print. So, black can mean 100% in one custom preset, but mean 0% in another. It’s probably good to be consistent just for sanity’s sake though.
I read that there are some common conventions, like red being a cut at 100%, and so on. Eventually, they will have the grey-scale gradient functionally working for doing 3D carving.
I do hope it comes with something like that user manual. But that machine is different than glowforge but it’s always good to be aware of what is and what isn’t suitable for a laser.
In the long run, I’m amazed that anyone would have the guts to do a home laser 3D Printer given the hazardous aspects of the operation. I watched the vid of the guy cutting whatever it was. HCl gas. Just venting out a window? What about your apartment neighbors upstairs? Just researching “crazy ways our customers can kill with thIs thing” has to be a full time job for liability due diligence.