Information on pre-release units

Announcements
82

Nothing is being pushed on us, whether or not we use proof grade materials is entirely our prerogative.

Dan just announced that the ability to save settings we worked out for non Proofgrade materials will be added. A bonus and a very useful feature.

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83

I’m not too worried about it since I’ve always been trained to keep detailed lab notes, but I don’t think saving settings is a bonus feature. It’s a standard one.

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84

No, but this is affirmation of the previously announced “we’ll be shipping pre-release units by the end of the month [November]” and a boatload of good info on what’s there and what’s coming - that part exceeded my expectations.

On the flip side, I think they’ll be hard-pressed to get any useful data from this and make changes to the hardware and ship out any appreciable volume in December. Just too much to do, too little time (especially with the holidays). A cynic might suggest that by making this announcement it softens us all up for a delay announcement at week’s end. Right now I’m happy to see what they’ve confirmed it can do right now (and looking positively at what they’re working on with more commitment than “it’s in the hopper”).

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85

We will wait and see James. If the intent is to collect feedback, there is no way there will be time to modify and get anything new in. My hope is that the actual parts are already on order, and it is just software tweaks that are being done. Either way, we will find out in 3 days.

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86

Honestly I have high expectations for the announcement later this week. Dan has said that he is having their team come up with something interesting for us for this announcement. You don’t do that with yet another significant delay. The tone I get from him is barely contained excitement. I haven’t read anything from him that is ‘hinting’ at bad news coming.

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87

It’s not too late to sign up! We don’t consider date of application when deciding.

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88

Oh garbanzo beans…

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89

mm, hummus

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90

Just an old product development sense - time always runs out before the work does :slight_smile:

I agree though that there was a great deal of excitement in the announcement. I could just see the team saying “so they want details huh?, we’ll give them details!” and gleefully laughing at all that they could stuff into one announcement :slight_smile:

This is the best and most concrete news that’s come out to date. Dan didn’t need to include the “what’s in, what’s coming, what’s extra” - that is just super. They’ve done some very cool stuff. What’s done is spot on with what most folks were hoping for (if they were paying attention to earlier “what’s not going to be ready day 1” notes) and the bonuses were goodness across the board - the “what’s coming” I expect is “we’ve pretty much got it done but it hasn’t made it’s way through QA to release yet” because it’s the most definitive commitment to features/functions made so far.

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91

@dan Following this news, I see there are no 3D file format. Will it still be possible to use a 3D program file (for exemple a part file from Autodesk Inventor) and print it in the GlowForge? And or, where is the procedure to do so considering the current file format limitation?

92

And with the carefulness that dan and the rest of team has been with giving out details, especially a bunch of the details that he just shared with us, why would they do that if there was going to be another delay (aka time for a competitor to try and steal and duplicate the functionality)? With this much specific detail coming out, that also only makes sense to me if they anticipate the Glowforge coming out within this month.

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93

The stuff he referenced as completed or better than expected, I am greatly excited about.

What let a little air out of my balloon is minor, but I noticed have it affected me.

The printing dimension of 12" getting a little smaller (to accommodate faster head speeds) , not being far enough along on the tablet/mobile apps (thinking mainly of showing my wife how easy she came use the GF) and the references of the Pro and filter (having the “Not released yet” reference just had an old affect).

Software is always changing (firmware, apps and web), so I know it will only get better.

That is why I am looking forward to a direct statement by @dan because he will be up front with how December will be.

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94

I concede I might be confused then, this is a lot of information if this is the plan for the next 4 days. I thought this was information about what they were going to be ‘shipping’ in December especially with all the talk about sending items out and having them returned.

Hopefully it will all be clarified at the end of the week.

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95

Just saying the ability to save settings from a previous job and material is a pretty basic setting. Proof grade recognition works but you will have re enter the settings each time you use non Proof Grade materials because we didn’t finish that feature yet? seems like an odd thing not to have work out upfront.

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96

YMMV, but I don’t see it that way at all — The ability to save material settings is very different that the ability to set them (which you will be able to do on Day 1).

None of the lasers I’ve worked with had a way to permanently save the speed/power settings for various materials, which is why I kept a logbook of every print job, along with notations on the quality of each job.

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97

Okay, I’m in. We’ll see what happens :blush:

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98

I am not really a 3d guy, but there has been much talk from those that are about using Autodesk 123DMake to slice and create laserable files from 3d models.

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99

I had already discounted the bed size - it’s right between my other two lasers and with 12" square stuff really only being a nominal size I got over the half inch drop. I would really have liked it to be 12x24 but that was something I knew wasn’t going to be back when I ordered it.

The filter is something that’s been out there for a couple of months at least and the same with the Pro features not being ready when shipped so that was all old news so no impact on me emotionally - already dealt with :slight_smile:

I was jazzed by the details though - that’s so uncharacteristic it gave me the emotional boost that I’d not get worked up about another maybe monthlong delay in shipping. The specificity doesn’t require parsing of what he really meant and is much more satisfying than “we’ll ship it when it’s wonderful” ever was.

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100

Well I find all this pretty exciting, the slight change in specs sounds great to me (particularly that .5" increase in Z height)! I have been desperately waiting for the GF so that I can tackle a number of business projects (a couple of which I got beaten to market by other people…blergh) so having the machine show up in the now-forseeable-future is a great thing.

I have so much experimentation and creativity to explore but can’t do it without the machine! Glad I signed up for that beta (hint hint wink wink) :wink:

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101

Just do it @jules. You know you want to!

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