My sister received a Glowforge Aura for Christmas. She hadn’t previously heard of the device, so she wasn’t expecting to receive one. She does a lot of crafting, though, so I think she’ll love it. I told her I’d come for a visit to help her set it up and get up to speed. The problem is, I have no experience with the Aura. I have a Glowforge Pro. I would appreciate any insight and advice you’re willing to offer, particularly from those who have both a performance laser and the Aura. Here are some of my questions:
Is there any difference in the user interface, or will that experience be familiar to me?
She has a Cricket. What will she be able to do on the Aura that she can’t with the Cricket?
What differences should I expect between my experience with the Pro and hers with the Aura in terms of speed, performance, materials, etc.?
Are there any materials commonly used on a performance machine that won’t work or should be avoided on the Aura?
Any suggestions for some great projects for the Aura we could start with to get her excited about the possibilities? Fun materials I should take with me?
Your sister will be glad you are visiting.
The interfaces for all Glowforge machines are the same.
The Aura is very slow and there is no focusing beam to see when you use the set focus tool.
Glowforge recommends that draftboard (mdf) and 1/8" plywood not be cut in the Aura because of the debris. Thicker plywood and Proofgrade light plywood are ok.
The Aura has a diode laser which will not cut clear, blue transparent or mirrored acrylic.
The Aura is great with paper projects - so look through the catalog for some paper inspiration.
The rails of the Aura need to be cleaned three times as often as you would think - like after every use. Dirty rails cause the laser movement to become inaccurate.
All of the information your sister needs is on the Glowforge support pages - from material capability, to cleaning tips.
Baltic birch is fine as it’s all wood - it’s the MDF cores you’re trying to avoid.
I’m going to echo the paper recommendation - absolutely no char, it’s gorgeous.
There is still going to be that joy of watching it cut - you, as a CO2 user are going to have to temper your expectations about speed so you don’t make your sister feel like it’s too slow
Pick something intricate for the first cut so she can see the ease at which it makes ridonkulously accurate intricate cuts
Avoid clear acrylics (even coloured clears seem to have the same issue), and anything blueish as far as material goes and you should be golden.
Thank you for the clarification about Baltic birch. I have some nice pre-finished BB I use for a lot of projects. I’ll cut some down to 12x12 for her and explain the process of finding custom settings.
When I cut paper on the Pro, I have to use adhesive to keep the pieces from blowing around. I think I saw something about that not being such a big problem with Aura. Is that correct?
really? i’ve never seen or heard of anything sold as BB that has an MDF core. i’ve heard of some that really doesn’t truly fit the specs and sometimes has more voids or some knots in the core, but it’s always been veneer.
Aura has pass through slots, so as long as your material is already 12" on one dimension you don’t need to cut anything down
Paper will still blow around a bit, but the good news is you can use magnets and tape, no need for sticky surface.
Aura is also great for heat transfer vinyl (HTV) which is laser safe polyurethane. You can get it in lots of colors and patterns easily at Joann or Michael’s, almost always on sale. Sometimes you can find the GF proofgrade version at those stores, too. It’s called Eco-Iron On.
Yeah, it was around the time that the shortage started. It may not have lasted long or they may have been called out, don’t know because I’ve been using mostly maple since.
Edited to add… I really don’t have any idea why I used BB to begin with. There was no proofgrade option (not that that matters) but it wasn’t “better” than other options. I’ve been using mostly Purebond from Columbia Products for a long while now. Quality/consistency is excellent and I get it delivered free by Home Depot. That may have become available around the same time the BB shortage started.
There are basically two types of materials that can be dangerous:
materials that emit dangerous substances when burned
materials that act as mirrors and can reflect the laser beam around the inside of the Glowforge, potentially cutting or melting parts of the machine.
The materials in the first category (which emit dangerous substances when burned) are going to be the same for any machine. All laser cutters work by burning away material, so they all end up burning the materials you put in them. PVC is particularly dangerous because of its chlorine content. It basically becomes hydrochloric acid when burned, which quickly eats away the electronics inside the machine and will cause it to fail. (And this sort of damage is explicitly not covered by the warranty.)
The second class of materials is where things may vary. The performance machines (e.g., Plus & Pro models) use an infrared laser. Copper works as a perfect mirror for the frequency of that laser, which makes it a bad idea to put in those machines. The Aura and Spark use a blue laser diode if I remember correctly. So I’d avoid putting in normal mirrors but I think reflection would be less of an issue given the much lower power output of the laser in those machines.
That’s not entirely true. There’s a complex mix of combustion and ablation and possibly sublimation happening. It’s not clear if the chlorides are liberated from pvc by lower powered lasers but I am not sure I’d want to be the one to test it.
I wonder if the internet has any examples of diode laser pvc failures. Let’s see.
Hmm googling around there are a lot of sites that say not to use pvc in a diode laser but I was unable to see any real examples of it happening. Granted I didn’t look too hard and again I don’t think I’d risk it, but I also don’t know enough about the chemistry involved to say if 6w is enough to break the chlorides off and cause damage to your machine.
What the Cricut cannot do is engrave. The variable shades can be very striking if you get the settings right. And it does not do as fine a detail where there are a lot of sharp corners.
