1 and 2 are not happening unless you want to get very experimental. That’s not being “sassy,” just realistic.
Now 3 is pretty easy. Simply find a scoring setting that will visibly mark the paper covering without going through. I see no need, though, on my machines, as after I set the focus* the laser fires exactly where it is predicted to.
This is a community of users that have been discussing Glowforge for over 10 years. Sometimes we are sassy, but mostly we abide by the forum rules of civility. Reading this forum will provide you with a wealth of information should you care to explore the archives.
I appreciate your answer. I think 1 and 3 could happen if Glowforge would be willing to have the laser movement be one axis with some API exposed for the rotation device to communicate to the website during use.
I find if I don’t use a jig, it is hard to align consecutive jobs. I will look at that button you drew an arrow to. I don’t think I have used it.
Thank you. As an engineer, I see easy ways to accomplish this and yes it would require modification of the bottom, which is easy to do. It would open additional markets for Glowforge for sure.
People have been cutting out the bottom of their Glowforges for several years. Most folks, however, just purchase a machine that accommodates tumblers if that is their desired use of a laser. There are many available now that were not available several years ago. As you may or may not know, Glowforge has barely escaped bankruptcy. They are not in a position to make major hardware adjustments at this time.
If you have never used the set focus tool that @markevans36301 directed you to, you may be missing some other Glowforge tools that can enhance your use of the machine.
You say that, but have you tried it? The way Glowforge designed their performance line machines there are wires that run under the bottom, and you have to reroute your coolant lines. So now you’d have to rewire your machine and also require additional coolant for the new longer hose volume.
Setting aside the support trouble of encouraging nontechnical users to even try to physically manipulate their machines to cut out the bottom without damaging them (not easy), then guide them through rewiring (not easy), and since Glowforge doesn’t sell coolant they’d have to spin up a new physical product line, which is a whole market study thing (not easy.).
Then Glowforge would probably need to evaluate the structural strength and fire risks of their (now heavily modified) cases. I’m not sure what it takes to get UL certification but I bet they’d have to go through that process again (not easy).
Any one of these issues is a dealbreaker from Glowforge’s perspective. Not to revert to Resumeing but engineer to engineer I’d suggest looking at previous threads – here or elsewhere – about cutting out the bottom; I think you’ll find that your take on this is underbaked.
Then take the money aspect. You’re asking Glowforge to rewrite their codebase to support this as well (not cheap if they even have the staff now). How can Glowforge make any money on this? Given the support costs and the amount of hackery involved I think they’d have to charge an unreasonably large amount to pull this off with any hope of making it back. People who would even want this feature and would actually do it are a subset of the userbase – I can’t say what that percentage is, and neither can you… so hey let’s add market research to the list of expenses on Glowforge’s side to even consider spinning this up.
As for sass, you don’t need to worry about it. The forum has a rule about tone, it says to
“[please avoid] Responding to a post’s tone instead of its actual content.” (Source) If anyone gets disrespectful it’ll get flagged and corrected. This place isn’t like the broad internet where you have to come in knives out.
So with that in mind, your ideas are good, but I believe you are underestimating several aspects of making it actually happen. Beyond that, I’ll refer you to something @dan (the CEO) said about Glowforge in early days:
From all outward appearances that stance hasn’t changed, and it’s solid advice for lots of things in life, from lasers to relationships. I think there’s all but zero chance of ever seeing your ideas come to the old machines. As for future machines, who knows?
PS: Also, what @dklgood said about bankruptcy. Kinda torpedoed the entire idea here before you even posted. He also said this:
This could be interpreted to mean that there are a lot of “people”. I can’t say how many it is but the number of people that have posted here is very small, I think I’ve seen 2 or maybe 3 threads with someone who actually went through with it. I wonder how many there actually are? No way for us to know I guess.
I am not implying lots of people when I say people have been cutting out the bottom. If I know of or have heard of 5 instances is that “lots”? I only have heard of the ones that have claimed success. The failures haven’t been reported.
I know this may not be what you’re looking for, but some really talented people have created mods for their glowforge over the years and shared both process and progress on the forum. The one in specifically remembering was that someone made a rotary that works with glowforge’s existing hardware. @evansd2@dklgood@markevans36301 do any of you remember that? Because I could be mistaken.
Part of the fun I’ve had with this forum was watching how others adapted to challenges by creating what these needed to get the job done, like the tray that @evansd2 made for cutting paper.
While it would be nice to see more offered, I’m happy to still be using my machine and can’t exactly upgrade to a new glowforge if they came out with one, unless they start shipping to more places. So I really like to see mods users created once they were outside the warranty period.
If we’re thinking of the same thing, someone came up with a piece of hardware that rotated the rotational axis when the Y axis moved. I don’t know if it ever got built, but there are some fairly extensive drawings and I have no idea where to find that thread.
Yes, I and several others have built it, and have shared on here the things we’ve made. It requires no modification to the Glowforge, and no fiddling with the Y axis. The post that @CMadok and @evansd2 shared shows a few things made with this fixture, by myself and others, it also contains a few versions of the design plus discussion of how to make and use it. There are a lot of posts to wade thru though. Here is another link to a post where I engrave a glass tumbler. Rotary Engraved Glass Tumbler
I knew it was somewhere!