I totally agree with you. Then they came out with the pay for premium. I used a lot of files there and the amount that came out was amazing. But the price they forced into was astronomical… I got my GF in 2019 and it died in 2022 an I lost a ton of money. Three replacements and not one worked not one. I left and went to Omtech and the different was night and day. I don’t understand why GF is so high and why they aren’t doing research into improving the life of their machines.
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It’s a little sad to see how low they’ve gone with “AWESOME NEW FEATURES”… combining vector shapes. ⌘+ in Inkscape, done.
I don’t know what’s worse, as low as they’ve gone, or how little effort people will spend on learning a basic design tool when they spend so much on a laser…
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My machine is in a insulated heated garage so it’s not below freezing.
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Unfortunately, I haven’t had much luck with OMTech. Their machine died after 3 months. They tried to send me a new controller but then it also died after 1 min of installation (literally).
Now they are exchanging the machine for me but they keep dropping the ball with the shipping freight company, not honoring their refund after the machine being in transit, and also the slow 1 day per response from their support. When the OMTech is working, it’s great and I wish I bought a bigger one than the 24 x 28 but when it dies, the support is also frustrating.
The GF support has been attrocious. My GF Pro is no longer taking pictures and the support guy basically sends me these prescribed ideas like take a picture of this and that when 1) he knows that it’s not the solution 2) he has absolutely no idea how to use a GF.
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Canadian here, too. I have never figured out why GF has done such a poor job of shipping and support. We really aren’t that far away and so much of our trade is very tightly integrated with the American market. I am basically just waiting on my machine to die—using it less and less. I was never keen on the pay-for-pro features and although my machine has been fun, there is no way I will buy another. I have used lightburn and a Chinese laser (Mako) from InkSmith and although some features are a bit more challenging and the upfront cost is more, it seems that I could at least repair it or get help. Trotec has great support (and shipping) but I have only bought supplies. I’ll be thinking about a machine from them when the GF finally runs its last job.
So, ya, thanks for the PSA on your experience. Helpful to have the insight from the forum (which I will very much miss).
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It’s not Glowforge. It’s international shipping regulations.
Back in the early 2000’s, the ability to send stuff across the border was drastically impacted by new regulations. I was in another hobby where we would ship stuff all around the world for almost the same cost as here in the US. Then things changed, and it became impossible.
Knowing that, I would never have bought a GF if I lived outside the US, or bought one from a non-US company. It’s simply not financially feasible for a cheap hobby tool.
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