Excellent idea.
Or just use a consistent grade of cardboard for the packing and provide settings for it. I don’t think it needs to be anything special that costs more. Just a known type.
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Or at least settings for “Amazon” packaging cardboard. All the boxes I get from them regularly seem to be the same so that could be a pretty good starting point.
But since I don’t have my 
yet I can’t confirm they laser the same.
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Agreed - Maybe select cardboard that is best suited for our GF and of consistent quality.
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one big problem that I see with this idea is that corrugated cardboard boxes often get crushed, torn, or spilled upon while being shipped. If the proofgrade cardboard settings assumed a set 2mm* air gap, but the box had been squished a little and the air gap was smaller, or gone, the settings would be off. Stains, scars, extra stickers from the shipper could cause issues. A damaged shipping box would also be damaged paid material as opposed to damaged sacrificial material.
Most Lootcrate boxes have patterns cut into them, so you can unfold them, cut/fold certain spots, and put them back together into a thing. I have had several where the shipping decal covered the pattern holes, and one where a crushed corner ruined the thing.
*random number here.
Straight up sheets of proofgrade cardboard, pressboard, cardstock, though…, that should be easy enough to make in consistent batches.
Next up come the fears of fire from trying to run too complicated of an engrave in too small of a space…
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I don’t think there’s any liability to GlowForge for listing preset material settings - several other laser manufacturers provide lists in their apps, including company-provided and user-provided settings. I’m sure that Glowforge wants to provide an “it just works” experience, which they can’t do for non-PG materials for obvious reasons. But it sure would be nice to allow people to save their own personal settings; I am sure that people would understand that settings they enter don’t come with the “it just works” promise of the built-in settings.
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Pretty sure the GF lawyers disagree. They’re responsible for some fairly restrictive limitations.
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I think the reason for this is that Glowforge is going after what they hope is a significantly broader market. If you sell it as a tool to businesses that have tools, everybody is familiar with the idea that the tools may kill them and destroy the business. But…
For folks buying a pretty thing that they put in their home office for their friends to admire and occasionally cut some stuff, one of them is going to do something really, really dumb and blame insufficient warning. Glowforge first would like to do as much as possible to discourage the casual user from danger to avoid the sad story in the first place. And then secondly, needs a nice clear track record of discouraging anything off of the well warn path to help with the discussion when somebody figures out how to ignore all that and still not pay attention to what they’re doing.
And I suspect corrugated cardboard is going to be at the heart of the first sad story we read about. Somebody is going to try to say they weren’t warned and left it running in the next room and before they knew it…
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DANGER. COFFEE IS HOT…
and so it goes.
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There’s pretty strong language around using non-proofgrade materials, which includes cardboard already. So that’s presumably enough protection for the lawyers. I’m not sure legally that there’s any advantage to making people type settings in each time they cut non-PG material, vs being able to save and load them. It certainly makes using non-PG material a bit more annoying and error prone than it needs to be.
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To be fair, that particular label needed to read: DANGER. COFFEE IS ALMOST BOILING HOT.
This is more like: Caution. Do not use hair dryer in bathtub.
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Perhaps not legally, but certainly making stuff a pain in the butt will discourage some users from using that functionality and then avoid the risk? So it may not help you with the argument after, but it may prevent the argument from happening.
Statistically
I think this idea is presented poorly, but the sentiment is accurate. As a laser newbie I was pretty bummed to not see any help for non-proofgrade materials.
I think the GF marketed to a beginner with an overall idea that they were going to take a lot of the hassle out of it for you. They may get there eventually, but the truth is you’re really going to just have to tinker with it a ton and have no real starting place for most materials.
I assume GF experiments constantly, I would love to see their non-proofgrade settings somewhere with a bold disclaimer on it.
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Well, let’s not go overboard - laser cutting cardboard is quite routine, including in GlowForge’s marketing materials, and pretty much anywhere that does laser cutting uses cardboard to check any complex design before cutting more expensive materials.
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I think that’s a good idea! “Better late than never”, as they say.
Exactly. Nobody’s asking for oil-soaked rag settings.
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Obviously, I’m just guessing, so I’m fairly likely to be wrong, but I don’t think we’re gonna see cardboard settings show up in the list unless we get the ability to save our own settings or if we get Proofgrade cardboard. And the reasons are in the OP.
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I thought that they only eat grass.
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Sure. Not sure what argument there is against users saving material settings.
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I think its a double edged sword, from glowforge’s perspective.
Lets say glowforge provides settings for non proofgrade materials. Some people are going to be happy to have a starting place for their experiments. But some people are inevitably going to be mad or frustrated when they put x in the machine, press x material in the app, and the it doesnt work. Thats a bad user experience, too.
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I’m cool with having a user-submitted settings area of the forum and leveraging the “crowd” for assistance to make it easy for a world of materials. I will add the following request for and @Dan:
- Enable saving settings (with the user ability to add photos, hyperlinks and notes to the setting for the source of the material or image of the label).
- Enable exporting/importing settings from others (with expected caveats that they are not certified). These would have a legal disclaimer.
I’ll speak for me. I don’t need to handhold everything.
- Just get the variable height measure to be accurate and working reliably.
- Get the full bed to be cutable area.
- Ensure positioning accuracy (currently inaccurate up to 1/4”).
We will have thousands of users to fill our settings and materials catalog with options and shortcuts, if they do that.
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