So, really you helped develop this much more survivable fire extinguishing gas. Impressive. As a safety engineer, I keep an eye on nozzle placement (cabin interiors) and concentration levels (for effectiveness, and egress). - Rich
Yes, I was in R&D at Great Lakes Chemical and had the only PC (286) in the whole department of 200+ people in those days. As an independent researcher, I have kept up with the new research and I have a new game changing fire extinguishing agent in the pipeline.
Comāon Mike. Youāve been around the forum long enough to know he doesnāt give a complete answer to those type of questions.
I think the pre-release machines have solid sheets of aluminium but production will be a metallic coating on the plastic. It looks like this was added in haste, so perhaps needed for safety approvals and so another reason they didnāt ship.
We have to speculate on most things in the forums as there is no information forthcoming at the moment apart from @marmak3261 as the only user not under NDA. This is odd because they were supposed to ship now, so the manual should have been ready. If it isnāt then that is another reason they could not ship.
The Guidelines have been updated to disallow speculation on the safety aspects because of liability considerations for GlowForge. Itās a recent thing.
Why would you think they will change the design from pre-release to production? The only thing that is likely to change will be suppliers for the parts, not the design itself.
Dan said it somewhere. I expect a plastic coating is much cheaper but they could not wait for it to come through, so they had to go with a quick solution for pre-release and that is the reason they are not the same as production.
I canāt see how prospective customers speculating can cause liability to Glowforge and where was this ban announced?
I remember him saying the plastic had a coating of some kind, but that was likely in addition to the aluminum panels. It makes no sense at all to change out that aluminum lining - the whole thing would have to be re-designed.
It hasnāt been posted in the Announcements section, but @dan has mentioned it recently in other threads and closed them down.
Might not be a bad idea for him to post an Announcement notice about the updated guidelines and make it official, so casual browsers know to go check it outā¦
(i removed the link here )
It would make no sense to have both as nothing will get through the aluminium, laser or RFI, but I think he said they had developed a coating that was laser proof on its own. That would be cheaper to make, less assembly and less weight.
I found the quote:
Iām not concerned about it. Heās said a couple of times that the laser canāt get to the plastic.
The original question was how flame resistant the plastic was though, and the answer was that a fail, if it occurs, is designed to melt the plastic, not let it catch fire.
Edit: Okay, guess weāll wait to see what it is. Iām still not worried.
No I am not concerned about it either. It does explain some of the delay to full production though.
Dan explained the stepped approach to full production in the Q&A. They made the choice to delay full roll out to everyone at once, in order to run more tests on the machines for long-term issues that they otherwise might have missed.
It wasnāt an easy decision for them to make.
Itās not something that they can quantify though, so there is no one thing that you can point to and say āThis is what caused it to be later than was planned.ā It was a lot of little things that added up to something they didnāt want to ship, because a lot of little fiddly issues can cause enough problems for them with return shipping that it doesnāt make sense to send them all out. It didnāt meet their standards.
Just no easy answer to that question.
Well said. I also have a box of baking Soda in my laser toolbox, just in case some plastic has an imperfection or something that may ignite. I havenāt personally had more than a small flare up solved by opening the lid and spritzing some water on it yet (and that only happened once while trying to figure out settings to cut cork).
As someone else mentioned, my main concern was flammability and survivability of the Glowforge itself in the event that something does flare up while cutting, given that this is basically a consumer device and doesnāt even require basic training/warnings like most maker space lasers. And letās face it - many people donāt read manuals.
Sureā¦ And thatās technically an inexpensive answer. But
It puts out fires with no solid residue. If I want to shoot something into my 'forge, itās gonna be something that wonāt do any damage at all (or require intense cleaning up after).
- Tom
Fair enough.
Iām not carrying a halotron bottle with me to a maker space though (which is where my laser time happens currently). And shop vacs will generally clean up any baking soda mess if needed and are a very good thing to have near any laser anyways to clean up all the droppings that tend to accumulate in/under the honeycomb. Iām hopeful that the tip-out tray thatās been mentioned for the GF will at least help with that.
Actually, they make small bottles. But to each their own. Makerspace is one thingā¦ my Glowforge is another.
- Tom
Yes that is the official line but I donāt believe it is the whole truth. Dan failed to mention that they cannot ship production units because they donāt have approvals yet. In fact he said they could ship now but it would be a big risk without more testing, implying everything else was ready.
I am sure they would need the manual to be complete for safety approval and they would need to submit samples with the final casing for EMC approval and safety approval.
I know you take everything Dan says at face value but having been misled by the initial marketing and subsequent schedule announcements I donāt.
Per the community guidelines, Iām afraid Iāll have to defer safety questions to the manual that will come with your Glowforge, which will have extensive safety information.
I will note that you should always use laser-compatible materials, because non-laser-compatible materials could damage your machine or your health and safety. (This is expanded upon at length in the manual).