Improvement/Suggestions after ~100+ hr of lasercut time

Community Support
1

I’ve been cutting nearly every day and thought to suggest some suggestions that I didn’t see in the announcements and some I have seen floating in these threads:

  1. Ability to revert to original file: sometimes I have a file with designs A, B, and C, but sometimes choose to cut a bunch of A only. If I exit out and return, I cannot get design B and C back since I deleted them. I think the GF default files allow reversion, but it would be neat to have this for our original uploads. (My solution is to either re-upload the old file or press ctrl+Z rapidly until I’m at the original again.)

  2. Search for project name, implement folders or detail view (without thumbnail) for organization: I cannot easily find older files. If I use ctrl+F “proj_name”, I have to manually click load more to see the rest. This issue may be helped if it was a list without the picture or if you can search. The best solution for people with perhaps hundreds of projects is folders. Definitely saw some of this suggested in a different thread.

  3. Turn off fan for engrave jobs: The GF is very loud and perhaps unnecessary so for engrave-only runs. Judging by previous threads, it does not seem to be a capability the development team is willing to add. Is that due to overheating or ventilation concerns?

  4. Combine different-colored engrave/vector objects in a single job: many of my files have different shades of black (say #000000 and #010101), but I want them to engrave all at the same time with identical settings. There is no way to fix it in the GFUI, I have to go back to my vector program and change them all to one color. It would be great if GF can be told to combine colors as 1 job.

Recent features that I super appreciate on the Glowforge:

  • Custom settings for engrave/cut can be saved - really awesome!
  • Small improvements in camera bed image being accurate to actual bed (I see software update announcements for it but haven’t noticed anything myself; I either got better at guessing the alignment or my GF has)
4 Likes
2

Easiest way right now is to make a copy of the project on the home page before editing. Though since I don’t do huge engraves it’s just as easy to re-upload the file.

My engraves on MDF and wood are more often just as smoky as cuts. The smoke needs to be cleared otherwise all the lenses, windows and head mirror would fog up more quickly. A very dirty surface and beam combination will quickly destroy the mirror, windows or lens. Keep them clean.

6 Likes
3

Have you tried dragging B & C off the tray area. They will be like they do not exist for now but will still be there when you open the file the next time,

3 Likes
4

that only works if B & C don’t need to be perfectly aligned to A. Dragging stuff back into place is not particularly accurate. (A snapping/alignment/array feature could potentially help in that respect.)

5

I would just like a giant undo button at the top. It’s not that big of a problem, but it’s sort of annoying in these scenarios:
One day I cut A, B, and C. Noticed that C cut out funky so I delete A and B, then remake C. Close out the file. Weeks later, I need to make more A, B, and C again. Open the old file, it only has C. Find and re-upload the original file, reassign the settings, etc. just to get back to A, B, and C.

Then, I would suggest a smarter function to realize, “hey you are engraving acrylic super lightly and there’s like no dust, so the fan doesn’t need to be turned on!” The noise is not so great when I have rasters that last 2 hours that produce less particulates than dusting off an old book. (Even a slower speed i.e. reduced noise would be fine, but I’m not sure if the fans work like that.)

6

Yeah, but if you’re doing anodized aluminum not a lot of smoke

7

Thank you for the feedback! I appreciate it and will inform the team.