Fair enough. (btw, the second image in your post is coming up as a broken link on my browser)
1 Like
I’ve purchased 50K 3d scanners and high end equipment in the past. This will be my first equiptment purchase without an in-person demo of all the finished functionality. I don’t buy things based on faith, just logic. I may be purchasing several of these so i need to know the peg fits the hole.
Here is the second image again incase the first link was broken.
1 Like
[quote=“e81, post:5, topic:953”]
This will be my first equiptment purchase without an in-person demo of all the finished functionality.
[/quote]Mine too. And it feels weird. But I have also regretted not pre-purchasing several items that became cost-prohibitive when they hit the market.
I see what you are talking about now. Of course, that was done quite a while ago. Maybe @Kiko can post a macro close-up of his Legends of Wrestling trace-cuts that were done much more recently for comparison.
The image of the seal represents well the idea of engraving that most folks have. The picture of the floral motif tree on the six sided, I assume, Catan piece on Glowforge.com represents the level of engraving that has been demonstrated. All else in between is up for speculation. Confirm or deny seems harsh, but goes to establishing the metric by which you will judge your purchase. I too am eager to know details on the engraving capabilities of the Glowforge.
2 Likes
Just like any CNC, make a clean-up pass around the edge like you should. That is more up to how you use it, not what it can or can’t do.
1 Like
it’s not harsh. I’m not judgeing the machine, i just need to know if it is capable of achieving what i need it to do or not. I don’t care what the answer, i just need one.
“Engraving” usually creates 2 levels of surface plain with a hard edge.
“High-Res 3d Engraving” creates multiplane engraving with variable edge depth. (bitmap or poly based).
It’s not a cnc machine. Please don’t reply with “answers” unless you work for glowforge. It does not help this thread.
CNC = computer numeric control, that is precisely what the gf is. Same with a 3d printer.
1 Like
I believe he was referring to a drill / contact cnc based machine where you do have to clean up edges.
Please stop posting on this thread until glow forge staff replies. Thank you.
Please don’t reply with “Remarks” like that unless you want everyone on this forum to reply. It does not help this thread.
I gave you a good example of how one can and how they do in fact get good clean edges on a CNC/laser cutter.
Your image shows a unfinished product being worked on in the GF half way through. If you watched a little farther, you would notice that as soon as the GF came back for the cutout pass, it cleaned up the outside edges. There is no reason why you could not set up your file to do the same. It’s all up to you. You can’t blame the tool just because you don’t know how to use it.
2 Likes
Nope, Lasers too.
1 Like
e81, this is your very first post into the community forum. Asking for a GF staff only response is not what you will receive. The whole reason for the forum is to provide community support and yes occasionally informed answers. Dan, the CEO, will probably get to your question eventually. What we can tell you for sure is that the GF 1.0 is still in development with a early next year first production date. S/W is still being developed and Beta testing on everything has not started. GF has not announced any capability beyond what has been demonstrated. Dan has stated he will not make capability announcements in the general forum. His previous answer is likely as detailed as you will receive for some time.
7 Likes
If you only wanted answers from the Glowforge staff and not the other users, why did you post on the public forum? If you don’t want answers from other users, you can PM someone from the staff or email support@glowforge.com.
4 Likes
Hey Joe. I just decided to do contact them directly. This section of the Forum is called Ask Glowforge, i guess it was too much to ask people not to bog this thread down with speculation before i received a staff reply. The reason i posted publicly first is because i figured other people might have the same questions…
To glowforge staff: I’d really appreciate any answers to you can offer on my 2 questions. I’ll continue to check for replies on this thread and message support directly. Thanks!
It’s not so much what you asked, but how you asked it.
Asking people “Not to post” might work for a few people, but many of us old timers don’t much care for that type of introduction. We are more of the “How can we help you” type of people.
And BTW, outlining is a well know practice. It’s used in Tattoo work and everything… For that matter, you should have learned it as a kid. Remember “color between the lines”…
2 Likes
Here is a quote from Dan about the capabilities expected:
I will echo the others: Never post in a public forum with an entreaty for people not to respond. And never post with an expectation of official response. You were incredibly polite in wording with the initial post, but way out of scope on expectations.
Email the company if you want a personalized and official response. If you want to share, then after you get that response, come to the forums and share it.
And those of us who have read every post on the forum can answer you definitively. If you really have read every post on the forum you already know your answer. The very emblem you posted as your example has been discussed on these forums before.
The power supplies needed to accomplish that type of variable depth engraving are not yet complete. The bulk of the work needed for the software side is complete, but it absolutely is not yet possible (which means some unforeseen issue could come up, and all of the software work so far revealed to be useless, or the power supplies may prove impossible and the feature goes from “expected” to “impossible”)
So, your direct, 100% official, as of this moment answer is: No.
Your real world answer is: Hi, welcome to the forums, we are a community and we try to get along and help each other out. You raise a point many of us are also interested in and have discussed in depth. This is something the Glowforge team wants to be capable of, and is confident they can deliver on. But at this point, nobody knows just how well the final product will perform in this endeavor.
10 Likes
Thanks to everyone who’s provided great information on this thread. @e81, welcome to the forum. Apologies if the title of this section of the forum is unclear; every thread here is not just open to but welcoming of community involvement.
1: Glowforge has 1,000 dpi resolution and variable depth engraving, so the example you show should be possible - although it will depend on the material, the size of the engraving, and various other factors.
2: That is an actual engraving from a very early prototype, and represents where the hardware was at that point. It’s better now, and will continue to improve dramatically.
19 Likes