As a complete uncultivated in lasercutting, what settings needs to be given to the software tu run a material?
I thought that those settings were related to the type of printer (type of laser, power of laser…). That’s why I was a little concern about the lack of setting table dedicated to the Glowforge.
But, if I understand well previous post, settings from other lasercutter can be used as a start point. So settings are not related to the sort of machine? That’s universal units?
I think I’m not the only one that doesn t know much about all that, and I will thank a lot any Glowforge user (I know that somebody in this thread talked about this) who can describe succintly a step by step print to figure out how it works.
I don’t really understand Nospam’s concern if he has a lasercutter. He should know all the answers to my interrogation and so I can’t see how those concern can be his reason to leave. To me, I’ve been irritated like all of us I think about the delays but I can’t imagine throw out so much child before christmas dreams that I make since I have discover Glowforge.
So, for me, I m still in. And I m always impatient to learn more about my future toy.
So see you soon to most of you and I presume goodbye and take care for some who live us.
Obligatory reminder, though: this may change. (That’s always true, but since we did this as a workaround to the short-term problem of only having one barcode per piece of material, it’s especially true here).
It will ultimately depend on how people use the product, and whether this workaround causes support problems. (We’ve already had one prerelease user write to support to ask why the Proofgrade settings don’t work on the Home Depot plywood they just bought).
I’d love this feature to remain in order to act as a rough starting point. Possible simple workaround for you could be something to the effect of:
WARNING: You’ve selected a Proofgrade™ setting but no Proofgrade™ material has been detected. Your results may vary wildly. Please do not contact Glowforge Support with issues using this material unless you believe your unit is defective.
Not exactly. They’re pretty consistent based on type & power. A 40W CO2 laser is a 40W CO2 laser by and large. You can also interpolate from other CO2 lasers - like settings for a 60W laser can be adjusted because the GF is 1/3 less powerful so you’d increase power or slow the speed.
Speeds on most lasers are expressed in mm/s but I believe the GF is in/minute (IIRC). You’ll need to adjust. Then there are things like lines per inch that are standard measures.
I disagree. Someone who has lost faith will always look for a reason they were justified in losing faith. It’s confirmation bias.
If he cancels now he can take action on his concerns and will never know he was wrong. He wins.
If he doesn’t cancel and takes delivery and it doesn’t meet his expectations or his confirmation bias takes over and he’s disappointed and it confirms his lost faith, he “wins” by losing.
If he does like it then it disproves his bias and he “loses by winning” and he’s always got a simmering undercurrent of dissatisfaction as his subconscious fights with reality.
I second this! Not that it’s a vote, but I think this is a very good idea. I know Glowforge is trying to make as much of an idiot proof machine as they can, but there is a limit to be found somewhere. There is no system a true idiot can’t destroy. As annoying as it would be in some ways I wouldn’t mind if that warning popped up every time I used non proofgrade and selected proofgrade settings. If nothing else it would remind me to check if I meant to use proofgrade or not.
I don’t know what the current experience is with saving your own named settings but I could see allowing people to duplicate and rename a proofgrade setting as a base. On copy, it would show the explicit warning that the setting may not (probably won’t) work as expected on non-proofgrade material. That way people would have starting point but they would be using their ‘Random Home Depot Ply’ setting when lasering other materials.
if I understand correctly, it sounds like to find the PG settings you basically set up the forge for PG and then write down the options so you can manually enter them later.
Maybe one solution here is to provide a reference with the base PG settings? It’s going to exist anyway - we’ll all start by compiling our own, and some enterprising 'Forger will pull together a doc soon enough.
So a list of PG values that can be a starting point when dealing with non PG materials might be very useful. Just a “if you are working with acrylic, maybe start here” kind of thing.
Alternatively, if anyone is spending bandwidth on tutorials, maybe one or more tutorials on how to go about finding settings for a particular batch of material would be useful?
Considering the vast number of material and manufacturer variations that are possible, this second suggestion seems much more useful in the long term than a list of settings for proofgrade.
sorta like learning how to multiply instead of memorizing the ones through the nines.
I mean, it’s good to be able to parrot back “5 times 3 is 15” but much more useful to be able to do the math when handed numbers that you didn’t memorize in a list form… like decimals and fractions.
(I sorta panicked a little when I read this because all the multiplication I know how to do is memorized and then I remembered how much algebra and calculus I’ve done and remember that I do know how multiplication work)
100% agreement that knowing how to do the thing is better than knowing the answer
Ouch! I’ll bet your support staff are not looking forward to many of those calls. That’s almost as bad as not checking to see that your GF is plugged in before complaining to support that it won’t do anything.
“I plugged it in, now what?”
“Did you read the manual?”
“No.”
“Did you read any of the emails we sent?”
“No.”
“Did you read the giant sign taped to the top that says GO TO APP.GLOWFORGE.COM TO GET STARTED”
“Yes.”
“Did you do that?”
“No.”
I’ve spent the past 18 months learning as much as I can about lasers and specifically the Glowforge. Sometimes when I look at the stats and summaries of the forum activities and the underrepresentation of Glowforge owners/orderers here on the forum, I just wonder what it is going to be like once the delivery takes place. I guess you can lead the horse to water. You all there on the mothership might need to start assigning people homework like to get ready or something. Sure, it’s very easy to use, but still.
I should mention this is one of our investors, an utterly brilliant person and dear friend. Normally I’m not front-line support, although I do jump in from time to time.
In a year that won’t even make you blink. Someone’s sure to ask why nothing came out when they pushed the button…“did you put a piece of wood on the bed?”…Ummm…
Or “my tea light doesn’t look like yours”…“Did you snap it together?”…Ummmmm…
