The physical components are all visible. I don’t think it would be too difficult to crowd source a minor effort to ferret out the difference.
Besides, its likely competitors already have their hands on both models and have torn them completely apart by now. (Pictures of old Arthur Slugworth come to mind. Everlasting Glowstopper, anyone?)
PG settings for cutting medium black acrylic are:
Basic speed 150, Pro speed 163 in obscured and rounded units. The real numbers are 584mm/m and 711mm/m.
So the speed increase is 711 / 584 = 21.7% increase.
45/40 power increase is 12.5%. We are looking for an optical gain about 8.2%. The beam comes out of the tube into a metal box with two mirrors to turn it 180 degrees and send it out through a window. It enters the head through a second window, reflects down with the third mirror and is focused by the lens.
We know that both windows, the third mirror and the lens are the same parts in the shop. That only leaves the first two mirrors to have a gain, or rather reduction in loss, of about 4% each. That seems too much as mirrors are typically more efficient than that.
Hard to see how you can get and 8% improvement in an optical path when most of the parts are the same. The beam could be a better quality from the pro tube and so focus to a smaller spot perhaps.
It seems to me that the tubes are under rated… I know nothing about lasers but from what I have seen/heard from others, most 45w lasers can’t cut thru 1/2 acrylic in one pass. I talked with a couple people with 80w epilogues that can’t do it. I know there are a ton of variables but in general their rating seems conservative.
I think the GF has tighter focus than typical CO2 lasers, which is why it can cut deeper.
I agree, it doesn’t seem like the Glowforge is lacking in the power department.
I’d be curious what is wrong with those 80w Epilogs though. I recently cut some 11.85mm acrylic with my 30w Trotec. While 11.85mm is almost a millimeter away from 0.5", I actually had to speed up the feedrate because when I cut at the slowest speed* the backing paper started on fire.
*the slowest speed setting being the fake number of “0.01%” - I think I sped it up to “0.05%”
We had a 40W FS laser in our maker lab at work. This is an exact quote from the last time the person who maintains the machine got it up and running again after it melted some of its internal wiring:
I just finished cutting 1/8" translucent red with 60% speed, 100% power, 12 passes and it worked great and I saw no unexpected smoke, so I am declaring the laser cutter back in operation.
12 passes. Having no prior laser experience, that’s what I had been told was normal to cut 1/8" acrylic. Setting aside complaints about the manufacturer, our machine was in very poor shape, and in fact it died shortly thereafter.
I am so happy to have my own laser at home where I don’t have to worry about whether it’s being abused or taken care of properly. The moral of my story, I suppose, is that those 80w Epilogs may have been “rode hard and put it up wet”, nearing the end of their tube life, out of adjustment, or just plain operated incorrectly. We may not have quite as much flexibility, but for me it’s exactly the right tradeoff. Time is limited, so I’ll take the plug-and-play machine.
12 passes for 1/8". Are you sure that wasn’t a 4W laser, not 40W?
When I first got my k40 I was doing the same. 1/4 was nigh impossible
its because theres no focus mechanism etc. theyre just going at it brute force and charring everything to hell
Perhaps they aren’t offering the Pro specific components in the shop yet.
Why would that be as pros are in the field, so pro customers could order them. They should be marked basic only if they are different.
Maybe because they haven’t caught up. They didn’t offer parts at all until a month ago when they had the first field repair months after they had the first Basics in the field.
I don’t believe everything is a conspiracy to deceive.
No I don’t normally, just where Glowforge is concerned.
They know what machine you have on your account, so when you order the parts from the store they could send the appropriate one? Not saying they are different parts or not, or that they are doing this, just that it’s an option.
I don’t know why you are so negative on the glowforge, but it’s getting really tiring to read your constant negativity here on the glowforge forums. Why are you still here if you are so negative on them? Do you just enjoy defecating on other peoples living room floors?
I am here to see it is worth receiving, cancelling or downgrading to a basic and hacking it back to a pro.
I think that can be done without repeatedly calling the company and its employees liars that are out to deceive everyone, as you’ve repeatedly done.
What would you say if we do find out there are no differences in the linear system? Can you understand why if the only evidence is Dan saying there are differences but they are secret I might not believe that?
I see no reason to play “what if” and especially no reason to proactively call them liars. The absence of evidence is not evidence that you’ve been deceived or lied to.
There is evidence that the Pro units cut faster and are able to handle higher ambient temps. This supports what @dan has told us. If you think you are going to be able to “hack” a Basic into a Pro, I’m guessing you will be sad (or require spending money on new parts).
Laser tube ratings are interpreted differently by different companies. For example, some companies sell 750mm tubes as 40W or even 45W. That’s accomplished by turning up the current past rated limits - either once on the test bench to justify the number, or in the product permanently, with predictable effects on tube life.
We also have a lot of other magic going on that improves cutting efficiency beyond watts, much of which we don’t talk about. Doubly so over time - for example, dirty output couplers are a permanent drag on output power and eventually tube life; our design solves that permanently. (You can see that just by looking at it, which is why I mention it as an example.
Many of our improvements are not detectable without specialized equipment and a knowledge of what you’re looking for.)