Hahaha. I think we’re all little screwy from this pandemic.
Plus, debate can be fun and is how ideas are made.
1 Like
I’m not assuming, I’m stating statistical realities. I didn’t try to claim it’s true 100% of the time, because pretty much nothing is. But you can bet that if you were to plot good judgment and reason vs. disposable income, you’d get a nice normal bell curve, and the people needing ridiculous warning labels in order to keep them from maiming themselves and/or destroying their expensive equipment are primarily more than two standard deviations from the norm. If you’re doing business, your focus area is WITHIN the two standard deviations. That’s where you put your effort; marketing to and shaping company policy around the outliers is a waste of resources and in the long run will cost far more than the occasional lawsuit from someone who didn’t RTFM that by some fluke ends up actually winning in court.
If you enable stupidity, you just breed MORE stupidity. And that’s a stupid way to run a society.
I respectfully disagree…whole heartedly. Not pointing out what stupid things other people have done is ridiculous. Absolutely.
That viewpoint seems extremely narrow minded. By pointing it out you teach and tell others what not to do. You’re basically saying ignore it and forget the outliers.
By the outliers, I mean - The people that don’t have access to thousands of dollars. The people that save for months while navigating the ins and outs of mid-level management work. The people that take on personal debt to buy and enjoy these machines. The people that can only hope and dream to ever have access to a machine such as this.
Definitely it could…we certainly made that and a lot of other suggestions. (I remember someone even suggested making new users take and pass a test before turning on their machines to prove they read the instructions. I still like that idea.) 
In the end, they followed the advice of the FNLs (friendly neighborhood lawyers) that they were paying big money to, to review liabilities before they did the first production run on the machines.
We weren’t included in those discussions of course, but I have no doubt they were lively. They certainly were here in the forum. 
What we did get, at the cost of much arguing, was this section…the Beyond the Manual section, where we can discuss things like settings and machine modifications openly without having the lawyers shut us down. (They might be overly cautious lawyers, but they know the law and I don’t, so we just do the best we can.)
Bottom line…your suggestions are sensible ones, and they were discussed before the machines were put into production. We just lost that battle to the legal necessities of protecting a new company in today’s lawsuit-happy society.
2 Likes
@Jules
Thank you for taking the time to explain. I get it. FNLs always win. And I’m sure that GF had probably thought of every thing and then some.
I’m not privy to these things like you are. But I appreciate you sharing. I know that GF is a good company and they probably do care very much.
It’s gut-wrenching when you spend that much money and then end up breaking it two weeks later… so, I wanted to fight to try and change it. For others out there like me.
So again, @Jules, thank you for being real with me and giving me the best answer possible to a terrible situation like this.
This seems to be the most logical answer and the only one that can be accepted. Because, frankly - I can’t argue with FNLs.
Way beyond my league in both aptitude and and debate.
At the end of the day GF is an awesome company and I love their machine. What I say is not reflective of GF as a whole, just a specific situation within their policies that I personally think should be changed… but for legal reasons cannot…
So. That’s the end of that.
1 Like
You can still help, and in fact you have already. You developed a method that people can use to clean the machines if they do cut vinyl…and that is a BIG deal. (No one had posted one that I know of…it’s going to help a lot of people going forward.)
We try to warn folks up front whenever we can if they come to the forum. It all helps.
Keep fighting the battles…I think their relationship with their customer base is one of the things that makes Glowforge so unique. Glowforge does care, and they do listen when they can. It’s made for a delightful machine, and working with some really great people. 
2 Likes
With all due respect, this is the entire Glowforge business plan in a nutshell.
Irony, it was exactly what I said before:
Guess it’s all in the delivery.
3 Likes
You missed my whole point. The outliers I referred to would be the ones who have thousands of dollars to spend despite being stupid. The ones you describe are the non-stupid ones, the ones in the middle of my bell curve. They are smart enough to come up with that much money, and what they buy with it has value to them as a result, so they will read the documentation before diving in. Because that’s the sort of ethic that allows them to navigate the ins and outs of MLM work and still amass the money required to buy expensive toys. They’re the ones who DON’T need signs to keep them from running over cliffs.
1 Like
I’m immediately suspicious of any statement that begins, “with all due respect,” because what it really means is, “I’m about to disrespect you, so I’m going to say this in order to prevent anyone from being able to call me on it.” 
5 Likes
Let me try again.
:clears throat:
I think you just stated the entire Glowforge business plan in a nutshell.
Marketing to stupid people would be…well, stupid. They’re a horrible demographic to deal with. And none of the users I’ve gotten to know here are a part of that group.
GF’s niche is the smart middle income creative sort who can’t afford/justify a commercial laser but have the intelligence and ability to make good use of a hobby level machine. And I think that was a brilliant choice on their part.
4 Likes
Glowforge is mass-marketing a laser cutter to people who have never used a laser before, and who don’t necessarily understand optics, electronics, or the dangers of cutting a variety of materials with a focused energy beam. They promise a plug-and-play experience, and to a certain extent they deliver just that. I am not knocking it, I happen to really appreciate what they have accomplished.
But how many times have you seen a post from a disappointed owner who bought their machine on Friday and are upset because they aren’t producing shippable product to customers by Monday?
It isn’t a question of intelligence. It’s about the expectation that is being set for how much time investment is necessary to become an “expert”, or even to achieve a basic level of proficiency operating and troubleshooting the machine.
There are many less-expensive options for people who want to get into laser cutting. I own no fewer than nine laser cutters. Eight of them, together, cost less than I paid for my Glowforge. The difference is that the other eight required some assembly, installation and configuration of software, and even upgrading of controller boards or adjustment of belts and stepper motor reference voltages. You may need to determine gear ratios and decipher microstepping configuration jumpers and motor specs to generate a GRBL or Marlin configuration file before you can make your first successful cut.
That kind of process tends to filter out the folks who don’t have the patience to RTFM.
I don’t disagree with your characterization of the Glowforge customers who generally participate on this forum, but there is nothing about the marketing (or price) of this machine that guarantees it won’t be purchased by a lot of people who know just enough to be dangerous.
This is a lot more effort than i usually expend to explain a joke. Cheers!
I’m going to relent on this topic and yield to you. I stand by my views - it just seems that our definitions of stupidity are opposite each other.
Besides - you technically won by default because I got emotional during our discussion.
in the famous words of Forrest Gump
“Stupid is as stupid does”
And “that’s all I have to say about that”.
1 Like
I’ll share mine, for the record. (And this is a professional opinion, not just a personal one, FWIW.) Stupid isn’t about IQ. I will bend over backwards to help someone with a low IQ who is trying to understand. (Forrest Gump is a PERFECT example, BTW. He may not be an intelligent man, but he is not the least bit stupid! Or Loretta Lynn, with her great quote, “I may be ignorant, but I ain’t stupid!” Or something along those lines, anyway…)
It’s the people who have perfectly good brains but don’t bother using them – those are the people I call “stupid.” I spend my days trying to help people whose brains don’t work like they should find some way to achieve a modicum of normalcy, and I am in awe of their strength and resilience and how hard they work just to exist, so I have very little patience with people who waste the functional capacity they’re lucky enough to have. 
'Nuff said. Go make something awesome, because I’m stuck 2000 miles from my Glowforge for the next 2 months and can’t, and it’s already driving me a little bit crazy!
6 Likes
Honestly…it’s still cruising along. I ended up having to replace the drive belt on the arm…but that was easy.
I open it up and give it a good cleaning and spray down with electronic parts cleaner every 100 hours or so…really depends on what I’m cutting/engraving and how cluttered the fan gets.
But for the most part…we’re still cruising along. I haven’t used it as much because we got transferred to VA and I’m in an apartment…noise is a thing lol
I’ve got an unofficial agreement with the property manager that if I do use it…it’s only M-F 10a - 4p (when everyone is at work)…go figure lol
But I still get to fire it up and do some prints/cuts every now and again. Currently, I’m working on a wall size table of elements for my office. Doing a reverse engrave on poplar and then coloring all the characters. Eventually, I’m going to get it finished and mounted on the wall…
But reverse engraving and cutting the table of elements on poplar is slow because of my limited ability to cut whenever I want…
7 Likes
Hey that’s great. I was curious how the repairs went long term. Well done.
4 Likes
Is it just me…or is almost everyone afraid to tear apart their GF?
I mean…tearing apart a $6k machine is no laughing matter…but I’ve had a few people PM me reguarding this method as they have cut the wrong materials with their laser and it is now not working…
they ask for my advice on the method…I tell them…and never hear from them again…like I’m the crazy one for suggesting basic chemistry work…am I saying something wrong or is it that scary to tear apart this machine?
Just wondering 
3 Likes
Short answer: No, Yes.
Long answer: I have found that a lot of people I would consider well-educated, don’t really understand basic chemistry. Besides that, it is scary to dive into the guts of an electronic device…unless you have some experience in this area.
My guess on the people contacting you is that they are in the first stages of desperation and are searching for a Magic Solution.
5 Likes