Rumors about the Full Spectrum Muse Laser

Normally I don’t write much about other companies’ products, but I’m making an exception because this is so interesting. Full Spectrum is shaking the bugs out of a prototype laser design, the Full Spectrum Muse. This will replace their old laser, the Hobby Series Gen 5.

Everything below is second hand from a few of the Full Spectrum sales reps who visited us to chat, so please take this with a big grain of salt!

  • The Muse has a new outer shell - you can see a bit of what it looks like in Full Spectrum’s Youtube wrapup of the Maker Faire Bay Area show:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iSd3sMemj4
  • The Muse has the same laser and power supply as the Hobby 5th Gen it is obsoleting.
  • It adds a camera; you can use it to take a series of pictures and assemble an image of the whole bed.
  • They’ve changed the extruded rails to fix some problems with alignment and precision on the Hobby Laser.
  • It uses a “Beaglebone” hobbyist control board that can be removed, repurposed, and replaced. They’ll let you put this board in the old hobby laser too, if you have one.
  • The software is the “RE” printer driver for Windows that they have used before with their hobby laser.
  • It has a touch screen to configure it, start and stop it, view status, etc.

Full Spectrum said they planned to launch the Muse this past July - they haven’t updated that date since it passed so I don’t know the latest, but hopefully it’s coming soon. It’s great to see innovation in the laser business, and we’re excited for their product to ship.

In the meantime, any corrections to this are welcome, and if any of you have had a chance to try one out, please reply here and let everyone know how it went!

EDIT: First review is out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEF6k-Zsl5A&feature=youtu.be

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Thanks for telling us about this! As neat of a product as it is… I am dedicated to you guys and the experience the GF will deliver!

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HOO RAH! I’m with you

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Always good to know about other products as I always learn something, but my heart and head are anchored with Glowforge!

Good to hear this. I went and looked at a Full Spectrum at my local Rocklers. It would definitely do my currently limited requirements, and comes as a bundle with extractor fan and air pump which I could probably live with. Not much more than the Pro, and only somewhat inferior by specs. Now you have saved me from disloyalty and error, since the new one is not immediately available, and might cost more, and I have commitments in October and November which will help the time pass.

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Where do we see the case? Just at 0:28 in their booth? All I notice is the old hobby laser. The big white box people are focusing on.

There is MAYBE a gray and black box to the right of that, which everyone is ignoring.

EDIT (before even posting, eh…): At 1:32 we get a zooming away still image where that area of the table is shown to be a box, which is now open. Looks very similar to the Glowforge (superficially).

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With no price tag, no official info on their site, and the feeling that they are trying to catchup with Glowforge before they release it.

No thanks.

Call it marketing
Call it commitment
Hell, Call it love for the idea

I’m here to stay

@dan Why are you letting spies in? :wink:

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Good catch. It looks very similar to a Glowforge.

Dan, since you are taking the time to write about other companies lasers, why not give us something about ours? Some success story to share perhaps?

I wonder if Full Spectrum is the “US Factory” assembling the Glowforges?

I don’t really understand the reason to post this topic? I’m guessing all this info goes back to SF maker faire. A couple of reps probably visited the Glowforge booth and mentioned they were working on something similar. GF visited their booth or a couple of potential customers visited the GF booth and mentioned what they saw at the FS booth. I’m currently a loyal GF customer and will continue to be until another company comes along and demonstrates to me they have a superior product that provides a better value. I’d also want to see a better strategy for the home user than what GF has laid out. So far I’ve neither heard about or seen evidence of any of those things from FS (or any other company for that matter).Yes FS actually have physical lasers you can buy but they havent demonstrated any strategy or vision that has me interested in them… And that video did nothing to help… Ragtime? Seriously? There are only 292 views on their video for a big reason. They appear to me to be the Xiaomi for makers. I’m hoping @Dan becomes the Steve Jobs for makers… So far we’ve seen the charisma and vision… Just waiting on the execution. The GF team has the credentials to follow through, so yes I have high hopes and I’m still onboard.

Edit: I just watched the FS intro video on their fifth gen hobby laser and I’m even more convinced they’re the Xiaomi for hobbyists. Great at reverse engineering hardware but they won’t be able to touch the software or demonstrate any vision beyond what’s already been produced by other companies.

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If they do have plans to outright copy Glowforge, then they are doing it the best way possible.

Copy the general appearance, have it in your booth and on your video well before Glowforge actually releases… makes you have the appearance of “Oh, great minds think alike, yeah?” without having to actually accomplish anything at all.

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Just checked out the parent company: Full Spectrum engineering. They blatantly list reverse engineering on the home page as an area of expertise. I’m even more confident in my assessment of them.

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Our manufacturing partner is a company that specializes in manufacturing for others - it’s a very large company. (Still haven’t announced who it is yet, sorry!)

My understanding is that Full Spectrum assembles its Hobby Laser in their office from Chinese components, while the rest of their lasers are imported from Gweike and other Chinese vendors, then modified on-site - but again, this is all secondhand, so I apologize in advance if it’s incorrect.

I thought it might be a topic of interest for folks. And as I’ve always said - it’s important to us that you buy what’s right for you, whether you’re our customer now, later, or never.

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I as watching a FS laser unboxing youtube video today from a couple years ago and thinking - that looks just like a spray painted K40… (seriously - even the ill fitted vent on the back)

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Fair enough but right now the GF vs the Muse is basically comparing two vaporware devices. We’re currently left to make our choice based on which company we believe in more and the company’s description of what they hope to build. Everyone on this forum has clearly made their decision. Speaking personally I have seen nothing from FS to even get me thinking about changing my mind. I could easily put my personal reasons together if you’re interested. I did find researching FS today interesting though so thanks for the original post. Anyone else interested in a bit more about the FS Muse should check out this Reddit thread https://www.reddit.com/r/lasercutting/comments/4p5gdv/weve_been_building_badass_lasers_since_2010_ama/?st=ise46cyz&sh=d8519768 I found the fact that the FS forum hasn’t had a post in over a year disappointing. I Facebook messaged them for an update so we’ll see what comes of it.

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FSL has more engineers than creatives/designers… technically good product and support is good although more from an engineering/technician kinda viewpoint than a customer service/layperson/personable type viewpoint. In other words, if you are a technician yourself, you probably wouldnt notice this about them. However if you are a designer or hobbyist without a technical/engineering background, you will definitely notice and maybe come away frustrated. Their software interfaces are more technical in nature, less intuitive, less elegant, more about getting the job done than having a smooth, enjoyable experience while doing it.

When I made the decision to pre-order a Glowforge, I had looked at FSL hobby lasers first. In fact, I’m quite familiar with FSL, having a Pegasus Touch SLA 3D printer in my home workspace. The fact that FSL has their laser cutting/engraving product line (ie: laser experience) was the deciding factor for me when considering the Pegasus Touch vs a Form1 3D Printer… and I think the Pegasus is still far more capable than the Form1 or the Form2, but that’s a comparison for another day.

When I saw the intuitive software features that Glowforge was working on, that, along with the pre-order price, were the decision clinchers for me. I do have a highly technical background and the geeky stuff is no problem for me, but man the GF intuitive features to handle some of the learning curve are what I am really looking forward to.

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New stuff up! Just a pic, though. Now saying November launch. Looking forward to seeing what they’ve done! https://fslaser.com/Muse

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looks like a mega knock off of the g/f and supposedly they will be shipping before you So you will loose out on recognition’s? Still I didn’t see anything about the software for them and I only see the one pick with a black fade out background

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Little info - the best I found was this Reddit AMA back in June

Doesn’t look like all the planned features, but at least some. I am not sure on the pricing, but I am assuming since they are targetting the Hobby market, it will be less than their current model.

Outside of the camera features, the biggest difference is the cloud vs offline use.

It will be interesting if they do keep November, and GF slips again…

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