focal height might come into play down the road when working with thicker materials. e.g. you might run the first cut pass at material height, then run a second cut pass at half that height to get the best focus.
I know some proofgrade materials have a default of 2 passes for cutting right now, like 1/4" acrylic. I do not know however, if they change the focal height for the 2nd pass. I could see this helping on thicker materials. Maybe if a cut is set to 2 passes it automatically changes the height of the 2nd pass to be half the material height. Id have to run a bunch of tests on clear acrylic to know the answer unless @dan has any idea.
Im not exactly sure how they have power distribution set up. Keep in mind a grayscale engrave will return 255 levels of power. As im running a grayscale engrave, it might be a sliding scale for them. Maybe a grayscale engrave will run 50% of the total power range, so if you set it to 1% it might be 1-50%, and if you set it to 50% it might be 25-75%, and if you set it to 100% it might be 50-100%. I can tell you its a rather large range of the power gamut as the differences between a grayscale engrave at 100% and 1% arent much different at all from what ive seen in my 3d engraves.
I dont know how they are distributing power, and havent taken the time to figure out it, as Ive been trying to just learn the best way to get functional cuts/engraves first. It would be something great to get an answer to if they were willing because it will actually make things so much easier, but again, I didnt sign an NDA, so I get the same responses everyone else on the forum gets. If its part of their secret sauce, I just get told that its magic. =P
Thatās cool. And thatās the thingā¦ I donāt know what is typical lasering versus Glowforge-specific lasering. So to me itās all the same at this point.
Same here. I wonder how these speeds vs results stack up against other machines, whether itās a FSL or a better-than-a-K40 Chinese machine. My brain keeps going back to how some of Takitusās videos on Facebook had people calling it Slowforge, but being a laser newbie I donāt know what expectations should be here versus what others are doing.
I have done engraves on my k40 at speeds of up to 500mm/sec. Currently the glowforge maxes out at 141.82 mm/s. [insert āthis is a pre-releaseā disclaimer here]. This could very well change. It might not. It does affect your ability to engrave thinner/less dense materials by limiting speed though.
For example, I cannot engrave thin craft foam on this machine like I can on my k40. Conversely, It takes me 8-10 passes to get through a 1/4" piece of a acrylic on my k40, with terrible edges, while its painless on the glowforge with gorgeous buttery edges. (1-2 passes)
Its always going to come down to power and speed. I used to think, hey one day I can get a 200W laser and be able to cut and engrave everything! Nope. Every laser has a minimum power activation level, so a 200W laser might only start to fire at the max power the glowforge can spit out. I would melt everything with that. Its not practical. You have to find a laser that is a good balance of power and speed with the materials you will be using. The glowforge is in a great zone. There will probably be more changes before shipping allowing its range of usability to be even greater.
The people that were making those statements were partially correct, its top speed isnt as fast as other lasers with a smaller head. But I also had it running at 1/3 of the max speed in those videos, and the engravings that it put out at those settings were miles beyond what most of those guys are making. So yeah I can run another laser at 400mm/s, but if it comes out looking like trash, whats the point?
There are tradeoffs to having the head on the glowforge that it has. Its bulky, its not going to max out at 500mm/s. However, it has autofocus (LOVE it), auto beam alignment (this was a HUGE pain on the k40), depth sensors, and a head camera that will allow it to do some crazy stuff that none of the other lasers will do. Not to mention they really have done a good job getting proofgrade stuff dialed in to give amazing engraves right out of the gate. I put all those old guys on fb to shame. They buckled and admitted it.
Thank you for your insight on this. I hadnāt made this connection yet and was also thinking that someday could upgrade to a higher Wattage Laser to cut ALL the things.
Thats the reason a lot of high end laser companies offer lasers with multiple tubes in them. You can get a high power tube for heavy stuff, and a light power tube for papers etc. Youll be basically buying a new car with that amount of money though.
which raises the question, āDo I really need a new car?ā
Iām anticipating this laser thing to be a ton of fun once I figure out how to use it and build and embellish so many different things. But Iāll stick with my GF for quite awhile before I start looking to get a more powerful one.
Iāve been meaning to ask. Have you been using your K40 at all since getting the pre-release? You mentioned itās better on craft foam so Iām sure there are a couple of reasons to keep it. Just wondering if youāve been using it.
You are rocking that pre-release man!
The details and visual examples of your exploration are great!
Thank you for your time in sharing and answering questions.
I havent because the glowforge took its spot, and theres no more room for it.
Im getting a new control board in for it so I can use open source software to run it (laserweb), and add some more functionality and control to it. Once that gets here ill be hooking it back up to play around with and make some comparisons!
Interesting I see very little difference between 1% and 100% And, actually, I see odd differences. Take the 4th box from the right. It appears lighter in the 100%? Could just be the picture. Could also be that the scale has changed so that thereās increased graduation (that is to say a greater range) at 100%? Orā¦ Iām seeing things.
