We ordered a USB connector on our first production run of boards because our original test fixtures needed to use it as an interface. The second run of boards was ordered without it, since our original test fixtures have long ago been upgraded and no longer need the connector. We’re getting close to that second round of boards making it into production.
While USB isn’t a supported interface (the connector is buried under a plastic shell and there’s no way to get a cable in without the lid open), some folks here have been experimenting with it. This won’t affect you in any way that I can think of, but it might cause some confusion when newer machines don’t have it, so I wanted to give a friendly heads up.
C’mon, @dan… You know we’re more enterprising than that!
The major downside to this is that anyone with later production units that wants to run custom firmware is going to have to break out a soldering iron (unless Glowforge starts signing 3rd party firmware packages and making a mechanism available to install them).
I figured I could save everyone some confusion by mentioning it up front.
OK, “there’s no way provided”. I wanted to be sure that casual readers understood that we weren’t discussing a customer-accessible USB accessory port on the backside.