Has anyone printed on-site at a live event? My Glowforge arrived a few weeks ago, and I’m interested in anyone’s experience with printing at events for large crowds. I’ve reviewed the restrictions on climate (optimal temps and low humidity).
Has anyone had issues with timing, power, etc. while printing at events?
@shop did at a maker faire.
Cooling is going to be your biggest problem.
https://community.glowforge.com/search?q=%40shop%20maker%20faire
Specifically:
as @evansd2 said, i set up outside in June at a maker faire. i had a portable AC blowing cold air into the intake.
your primary issues (esp if outdoors) will be keeping the machine cool enough (need a tent and some way to get cold air) and wifi.
Also, if you’re outside, know where you’re going to be and how you’re going to load in. I made sure I had a good hand truck, but some of where I was wheeling it was through a bumpy grassy area.
if you have a filter and they’ll let you be inside, that’s preferable. we had to rush to break down to get everything back in the truck in front of an incoming storm (although we broke down at the expected time, the storm was heading in fast).
as far as what we did to show the machine working, we let kids draw on a piece of paper and then engraved their drawings on baltic birch. scaled them fairly small so it didn’t take too long, but still, they usually had to come back later to pick things up. the new shape feature in the UI would have been really handy for this, too. we also had some pre-cut/engraved keychains that had a small area we could add a small engrave for those drawings as well.
I did the same for a few makerfaires here. Both indoor & outdoor. Wifi was my big issue - my phone’s service provider was unreliable at one of them so I had to switch to a friend’s.
Kids love drawing things, watching them get scanned and then engraved on stuff. Always have a line. I also let the kid push the white button 
Grown-ups were the same but they would also want to know practical stuff like how much it cost 
This kid’s dad grew to regret letting his child be introduced to the laser… 
He won’t shut up about it
Thank you all for the feedback!! I’ll definitely have to look at getting a portable ac unit for cooling. Did you purchase safety goggles for the kids watching the laser print? I’ve seen a lot about suggested safety supplies.
Did you print each design individually or did you wait until you had a few designs and print them all at once? Did you feel like the print time kept people engaged?
the only machine you need safety goggles for is the pro, and you only need those if you’ve removed the pass through covers. i’d suggest not removing them at an event, if you have a pro, and then no goggles would be necessary. you can safely watch through the top glass w/o goggles.
This topic was automatically closed 32 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.