Make that hopper shake

I agree with all of those. I’d also like to have folders (don’t think you listed that, but I’m on my phone so all bets are off).

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These are all great suggestions. I’ll add a few of my own:

  • Automatic N-up support. I’d love to be able to load a design and specify that I want 10 copies in a 2x5 grid and have the GFUI take care of everything. Better yet, it could automatically optimize placement on proofgrade materials. Here’s a new piece of :proofgrade: cherry hardwood… print as many of this design as will fit.
  • Time estimates before printing. I don’t mind if these are less accurate than the time given after the print has started; anything would help. “With current settings, this design will take about X:XX to print.” If layer settings were saved with designs, this estimate could also be shown in the design list, too.
  • More information for each design I’ve loaded. Printed N times on X, Y and Z materials. Last printed September 3 on Proofgrade Cherry Hardwood. Last print took about 15 minutes.
  • Direct entry of scaling values and/or sizes. If I load a design that’s 2" square, I shouldn’t have to go back to my design software to reprint it at 1"x1".
  • Support for metric units. I’d love to see this in a “unit agnostic” way, so I don’t have to change a global setting to make it work. Just let me enter 2mm for my material thickness or (combined with the previous item) let me specify that I want this design printed at 4cm x 4cm. Computers are smart, why should my inferior meat brain be responsible for converting units?
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First thing isn’t really for the hopper, it comes before the hopper. Finish and perfect everything originally promised.
Next I like everything in the op.
Finally, I’ll add that I’d love to see a grid that could be overlaid for alignment purposes.

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LOL, my long-lost twin!

image

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You guys do look an awful lot alike.

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Since you do not have to be in the same room to send a file to the machine, I doubt they will eliminate the “Deadman Switch” concept of physically hitting the print button.

People forget that these are not friendly elves off in a hole making things for us.
They are complex machines that require thoughtful safety precautions to prevent damage or injury.

Being in the immediate area to visually see that nothing is amiss prior to launch, probably makes their legal team happy, (or at least willing to frown and move on).

AND, the first time you saw something, like the exhaust not hooked up, etc, you will be glad it was done this way.

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I’d happily sign a waiver and just let the stupid people burn their houses down to save the extra step. :smiley:

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Should be easy enough to make a small robot to push the button.

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I believe the red laser is directed off to the side for triangulation of surface focus.
Maybe an option to fire a preliminary perimeter low power scorch to verify placement.

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Oooh yesss. I’ve been curious how much actual laser time I’ve used.

Seems to me one of the YouTube/blogger stars that got a pre-release rigged up something like that. His name escapes me.

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All of these suggested improvements would be great!

I’m not even sure what is technically still missing at this point. Is there a list of those somewhere? I’d guess the accuracy of the camera is in there, and the optical alignment for the pro slot.

I’m not sure either, someone starts a list every so often but I can’t point to the latest. With 3d turned on the pro slot and double sided cuts are all I think of right off.

Here’s the latest list. Although it is out of date. 3D engrave is now part of the UI and not over-burning in the corners has been addressed.

It now seems the SDEs are no longer focused exclusively on factory assembly issues and are working on bugs and end-user features. (You can tell by the amount of bugs being introduced, and then fixed, into recent builds, such as machines not calibrating well. :upside_down_face: )

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Thanks!

Overburning in corners is still 1000% a thing, just perhaps not on all material. I work with paper a lot and constantly have circle overburn in corners.

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Good point. It just might only work on proofgrade right now.

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It’s like 80% factory, 20% fun stuff right now. :slight_smile:

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The 3D engrave is not as promised. It is just a PG preset for the vary power engrave mode.

  1. 3D high-res engraving
    Engrave complex, three dimensional curves with 1,000 DPI resolution. To get perfect detail and sculpt with real depth, Glowforge can carve away material with multiple passes, each one focusing more deeply than the last.

You can do multiple passes but I don’t see any way to vary the focus on each pass. Also each pass is exactly the same whereas I would expect each pass to be a different depth slice.

They haven’t addressed the over-burn in corners. They have just added a PG preset that scores slowly to minimise its effect.

2 Likes