Pre-Release | From box to cut

Holy heck! It’s like you’re reading my mind with testing materials! LOVE the $ store testing!

5 Likes

Ok…you are making me want to go check the front porch JUST in case the GF Fairy came by. Ha

6 Likes

Great choice of design for the glass, a bullet hole in glass - etched on glass.

3 Likes

Fantastic work!!!

Excellent work!!! From your examples, I can see that MY PLAN TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD with exquisite laser made gifts will be a cinch! I only need my own Glowforge LASER, and the world will be mine. HaHA! PEW! PEW!

–actually my mind is already racing with thoughts about how to make all kinds of cool stuff. Your pictures are such a great inspiration. Thank you.

8 Likes

I guess I should mention what I have the glowforge sitting on.

Table top

Legs (Qty 4)

Storage system

And two of these on the Glowforge on the left.

One has sharpies, two metal rulers, carpenter pencils. The other has magnets, utility knife and microfiber cloth for the lid.

As for the exhaust. I have two gravity type blast doors. One directly on the inlet (where the 'forge connects too) and the other is right after the booster.

Directly behind that (the inlet for the 'forge) I have PVC pipe (4" ID) going into up to the crawl space. Then a run to the in-line booster (200CFM) then another run to the outside. (This is controlled by a super nerdy z-wave controlled switch.)

Though, this setup is not glowforge approved as it has more than two 90 degree bends. And I did have issues in the beginning where some of the smoke was exiting the mid-section of lid. But with guidance from support I found a folded manual stuck in the last 2.5ft of the run just before the exit. Absolute noob mistake on my part. But after removing that. The setup works great.

But once again. Not glowforge approved. My setup is unique due to the fact that there are no windows on that wall where the glowforge sits. Moving it to near a window would have meant that we’d have to completely redo the office- That was not going to happen. So I made due.

Inlet for the Glowforge

Provided 4" flex hose

PVC Pipe

Outside

I have no pictures in the crawl space. I am 6’ 2". And it’s a crawl space. I just wanted to get that part done and GTFO. I hate it up there.

39 Likes

Thanks for the table info! I like your setup. And Ikea is 25 min away. :sunglasses:

3 Likes

I love the pictures of the slate. Have you tried going deeper on the slate or will it just do a light surface cut?

Also that glass looks AMAZING!

7 Likes

Good question.
I would expect material removal to be like glass or granite where thermal shock shatters the surface.
Seems reasonable that subsequent passes would progress the depth, but require many many passes to achieve any significant material removal.
For that, I expect abrasive blasting to be much more efficient.

5 Likes

I am sure it could go deeper. It was engraved at low power. But that was not the look I was intending.

7 Likes

Um yes this could be useful. @dan , @Tony , hopper idea? Maybe even better if you can turn it off and on as desired?

3 Likes

With Snap, please? Here’s the thing… Adding a Snap will likely quell those who are looking for a 0,0. Nobody’d really need a 0,0 anymore because it could always be relative and yet always be repeatable.

  • Tom
3 Likes

Not sure it would suffice for that. Sure it would be in the same place software-wise, but how do you make sure the hardware (material to be lasered) is in the exact same place (i.e. shape centered 2 inches from the top and 3 inches from the left. It would be there in the software, but how do you precisely place the wood so it shows up in that spot)

Unless the grid lines itself up to the piece versus the bed, but I don’t think that is what @karaelena was intending.

3 Likes

I used the grid to assist with lining up the design to an existing feature on the workpiece. The best thing to do for work piece repeatability is using something (like magnets) on the work surface and using that as a hard stop.

My main thing was engraving something on something that was a irregular shape and not square.

4 Likes

Yeah. In my head it also needs edge detection to work. This way the grid would self align to the object even when askew.

Definitely

4 Likes

Seeing this;

was very helpful to me, as the space I will have behind the Glowforge and the wall behind it (leading up to the window for venting) is pretty tight. This relieved my mind, a bit. Thank you!

11 Likes

20 Likes

Etching mask for PCBs? Check.

(Did it at a low resolution to see if it would even work. And yes it’s inverted)

22 Likes

This is great! Can you break these out into separate posts? I know we sometimes get sloppy about new posts for new topics, but there’s so much interest in your work it’d do a disservice to leave these prints at the end of a long thread.

9 Likes