Reusing materials to minimize waste

Hi all,

I just purchased the Glowforge today and I’m wondering if we will be able to take a material sheet once it has been used and place it on the bed again as many times as possible to maximize its usage. I’m assuming this will be the case, but I just want to be sure. For those of us who hope to make money with the Glowforge, getting the best mileage out of a sheet of material is important.

Thanks.

Yep, with one caveat. If you get material from the company that is labeled for material type (not sure if it will be an invisible barcode or QR code), I guess it’s possible to cut out the code. At that point you might have to manually set the material type. Either way the material can be used over and over until you can’t find enough space to make your cut.

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@rpegg That is exactly what I was hoping to hear. Thanks very much for your quick and informative reply.

Thats the advantage if having the camera and repositioning feature. Not sure what was meant by a barcode or qr code @rpegg as none of the materials I work with have that…

Glowforge plans to sell their own line of controlled material. The material will have a white mask covering with an embedded invisible (UV light) barcode or QR code that is readable by the camera. The coding will tell the Glowforge what type of material so that power and speed settings can be made automatically. We are free to use our own non coded material and make the settings ourselves.

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