Shaper - handheld CNC router with camera assist. Good companion tool for the Glowforge?

A lot of good being on their “please send me spam” list did, huh?

Expected delivery September, 2017?.. Yeah no. I think I’ll wait for retail as well (and probably not buy it then either).

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I’m intrigued by this and can see one in my future but the expected delivery is too far out. I’m with @jacobturner in waiting for it to be shipping.

Now imagine if they said December 2016 - There would be a lot more pre-orders…instead of maybe then to be notified that some beta units would be maybe shipping by then…where have I seen that before?

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That’s true. The difference for me is that I did careful planning to show return on investment potential for a laser engraver that I just don’t see for the Shaper. A laser engraver had been on my 5 to 8 year radar so getting it potentially a year later than expected is still 4 to 7 years before I really expected to be able to justify buying one. The Shaper looks like a nice-to-have. Another factor is I already have several thousand dollars tied up on my Glowforge pre-order and can’t justify tying up more money for pre-orders at this time. But, yes, I see your point,.

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Actually, I changed my mind… Deja vu and stuff from delaying my Glowforge order. The thing that tipped me over is the promise that they’ll issue a refund until it ships.

If anyone is looking for a referral code to order, how about using mine? :wink:

Thanx,
that made up half of what I lost sleeping.

I think if shaper is half of what it claims it will round out my mini maker space nicely.

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I’ll add my link ‘hat’ to the ring. Much appreciation to anyone who clicks!

looks neat, if it works.
I would be worried about the “shaperTape”.
I like the idea of auto-z touch-off. “Autocorrect for your hands” sounds great… but auto-correct for type still gives out some pretty bizarre results on occasion…
I also wonder how visible and obvious the effects of “fine-tune[ing] the spindle position in real-time” will or will not be.

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There are a few videos where there is some indication of the ‘margin of error.’ At :23 of this video you can see an area where the start and stop may not have lined up as perfectly as possible, although it certainly seems like it would be easy to sand out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urEWgSlTs4A

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I think I’d rather see it use the sensor from an optical mouse to track position on a more relative scale, and not have the dust extraction tub pointed up the user’s arm?

Despite its potential shortfalls, the promise of a device with an unlimited x and y cutting size, and an unlimited material depth really sold me on the device. The demos and limited press seem solid, and I decided this was as good as this sort of technology was going to get in the near future.

If only I had bought a programming based turtle themed board game from them in the past. Then I would have no doubts.

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I am curious just how few of the $1200 models they sold. Those were gone in 5 minutes, and the $1400 were at 997 available. So pretty clear that this tier is limited to 1,000. And in about 12 hours it has only sold 300.

I am wavering. My card company called me this afternoon with fraud prevention, explaining the card issues I had. So I am back to wondering if I would like to get one at the $1400. But I lean very heavily toward waiting still.

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For $1500 couldn’t you build a pretty decent CNC router? I just priced out a 1000mm X-Carve and it’s only $1396. I guess if you wanted to do really big stuff (signs, etc) it might be nice.

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I am still sitting this out, perhaps because I have a tendency to use bigger bits than I ought to. So the idea that I would be able to hand-hold a cut and stay within the compensation range is not entirely believable to me. I hope I will be cutting a lot of templates by laser instead.

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I would love to have a CNC router, but I just don’t have the room for a big one (I’ve convinced myself that I’d want 50" of X so that I could do a full sheet of MDF with 0.5" on each side for bit clearance). I’d also want more rigidity and power than I believe the X-Carve offers).

I’m a stickler for accuracy and I’m not convinced the Origin can give me the precision I want, but I think it’ll probably be good enough if I just keep my expectations realistic. The gears that Ben (I think that’s his name) from the YouTube channel “Applied Science” cut look pretty damn good though, and it stands to reason that it’ll get better in the year (argh!) before its release.

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Similar to @Hirudin, I want something which takes less space in storage, and can work on really big things.

But the main thing I want, is easy registration for origin. I don’t really like building jigs or slowly aligning clamp positions. I am sure even with the Shaper there will be some work to do, but I am really hoping quite a bit less.

Another vid, this one from Tested. At 7:00 Jeremy engraves the shape of the state of Texas, the detail is quite good.

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This is just what I was looking for!
The Shaper is going to do the big, rough and maybe even some metal stuff and the Forge is for the precise and delicate… They are going to be great partners…

Here also my referral code, any help much appreciated :+1:

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I am more than a little giddy for this to be finally hitting the street. I’ve been following the project for over two years. This or the GF will be my last smart tools depending on who ships first. Handibot has created a bit of a monster in me being my first smart tool and I am looking forward to seeing what each one can do that the other can’t.

If the only thing you were waiting on was the ability to help me out with my mini maker space, now is your chance.:grinning:

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September 2017 - Glowforge better be first !

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