I’m going to make a wild guess that the subject in question there was bashing you because of a delay? It has to be that or the Show & Tell, but that subject is so broad it is cheating.
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I’ll let you do the sleuthing…
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Completely sans rabbit trails? How loosely are we defining “subject”?
Glad to see it was Show & Tell.
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I understand that the cost of a metal laser tube could very well be a large (the largest?) issue, but having a movable tube in the GF is really just a means to an end of having a relatively low-cost, reliable, easy-to-use, etc laser. If one of the existing laser vendors can come up with another way of achieving those goals, it would not matter to me. Also, it just seems from lurking on the various laser forums that the ULS/Epilog/Trotec lasers don’t have near as many of the alignment and cleaning issues as the Chinese water-cooled lasers. Same for software issues. (In fact, I don’t remember seeing any issues involving those models, but I’m sure there were some). I suppose the point of my earlier post was that if one of the big boys came out with a “consumer” model that was half the price of their existing lowest, what would that mean for the GF. I have not seen anything saying that they are, but just curious if there were rumors in that direction.
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It’s interesting that Full Spectrum were able to bring something similar looking to market much faster and beat GF to market. Their prior experience with lasers probably let them hit the ground running. Looks like they knew about corner circling, so were able to get the full 12" and still have room to accelerate and decelerate. A lighter head helps in that respect.
They made things a lot easier for themselves by having a less ambitious spec and using and an embedded controller instead of the cloud.
Metal cases usually take less time and money to develop than injection moulded plastic but will cost a lot more in high volume.
I wonder if they have proper regulatory approvals for worldwide distribution. Again having experience with prior models could make that a lot faster.
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The thing about the muse is it’s almost exactly what they had before. They changed the case shape which is easy enough, took the regular buttons they already had and put them on a touch screen(lost the e-stop!), and added a stitched image in the background of their already existing software.
I’m interested in seeing it in person, but I also feel like I could make one out of my k40.
I think one of the biggest differences here (with the glowforge) is the autofocus and proofgrade. I am loving them both. muse doesnt have that
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there is an e-stop… but it is on the touchscreen, so if you have any junk on your fingers…yeah, no e-stop.
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Eek. Or if anything happens to the beaglebone (which is a perfectly nice controller, and more robust than a Raspberry Pi, but still subject to electrical and software issues).
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Yeah but he actually has one at home and has had it for over a month. And as you point out, the specs counter some of his ignorance of the details. There really isn’t any reason that a techno testing nerd didn’t know what he got wrong.
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Does that even meet European standards for e-stops? I feel like it doesn’t.
The glowforge could probably make its start button closer to an estop than that one.
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My Trotec doesn’t have an e-stop button either. If I see something going awry I have to lift the lid. I find the idea of opening the machine you’re trying to stop as quickly as possible to be a bit ridiculous, but I suppose it works so I guess it could be worse.
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Yeah. As is.
Although in theory… it would be easier to punch a hole in the sheet metal of the muse to add a dedicated switch, than it would be to change the plastics for the GF to add one.
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Does a laser cutter need to have an e-stop? It’s not like a heavy duty CNC machine where you could trap a limb and it is totally enclosed while running.
@dan has just said it is in the hopper: Print button to pause a print? -- It’s in the hopper, so it doesn’t seem like it is a safety requirement for approvals. A bit surprising as you want to be able to stop as fast as possible if there is a fire and don’t necessarily want to open the lid or reach over it to kill the mains. You want to turn off the laser and move the the head away from the flames ASAP and possibly keep the extraction going. Does extraction tend to fan the flames or extinguish them?
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I am not sure on the regulations , but every e-stop I’ve seen actually hard cuts power or stops the machine without software control. The moment you are adding software to interpret the button it makes its less reliabile inherently.
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The hopper item is pause-on-button-press, which is a useful convenience. Per the forum guidelines, we don’t want to discuss safety lest people take discussion here as the correct course of action instead of the manual.
–dan
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The 80w Rabbit at the local makerspace had a big red palm-smack button on top as well as a tiny recessed button on the control panel. Repeated testing consistently showed that the panel button stopped the laser more quickly that the palm-slapper. “Repeated” testing emphasized, as nobody could believe this was true. Staff eventually re-wired it as expected.
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One thing I found interesting is their water cooled laser tube. The water supply is external so that is a hassle. You need a pump and a bucket or a tap. Kind of limits where you can put the Muse. However it raises the question of what Glowforge is doing about laser tube cooling?
The other is “No Cloud Required” for working designs. So if you already have a working set of settings and a cut file you don’t need the cloud to run the laser. This could be useful for doing makers taking the laser to craft fairs and other on-site ‘prints’ of stock items.
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Your 
(Basic or Pro) will have closed-loop liquid cooling. No water bucket or external anything required.
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Thanks! I was just digging through some other threads for specs. Sounds like the Pro has better cooling but both Basic and Pro use a closed loop liquid cooler or some kind.
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I’m at work, so can’t dig through at the moment, but my understanding is that the cooling is better in the Pro and that both units will monitor temps and pause for cool-downs in an intelligent manner as needed (doesn’t blindly stop in the middle of a cut).
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