Hmmmmm. That may make sense from an engineer’s perspective but the average user would be unlikely see it this way, and will prefer it the way Glowforge has done it. At least, that is my preference. It’s inline with what one is used to seeing from a 2D laser printer dialogue.
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Okay, I’m happy with the progress now! From what the image shows, the lines are very nicely even end to end.
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With a 2D laser draft mode is to save ink, so it is lighter by definition. My understanding of this is to trade quality for speed but faster doesn’t need to be lighter as you can compensate with more power.
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Exactly so the ‘average Joe’ reads draft and assumes lighter. Its just a reflection of the language and current expectation of seeing the word draft.
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With a laser engraver you can make it lighter and keep the same quality by just reducing the power. Or you can go faster with increased power to get the same darkness with lower quality. Seems odd to conflate the two. Makes no sense at all to me but I seem to be in a minority of one.
I get where you’re coming from. Its that we’re talking about a preset on the UI thats called Draft so I believe the term should follow the expected connotation. Just as you said above, I would expect it to be lighter because thats the common experience with laser and ink jet printers.
Afterall, this is a Laser “Printer” according to the website. 
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Because that’s what things like 300dpi draft vs 600dpi quality looks on a regular printer, right?
No, never mind. That’s not how regular printers work - draft is lighter.
Usually folks give GF grief for making up definitions unique to them, now it’s a problem that they followed normal conventions.
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They co-opted a term from 2D printers and used it to mean something else so no wonder it is confusing.
When you engrave something presumably you want a certain darkness. These presets imply that if you want it good quality it has to be dark and if you want it quickly it has to be light but neither are the case. You can have it light in good quality by using very low power slowly and a dark in poor quality by using very high power quickly. It is a speed / quality trade off but gives the impression it is a dark / light trade off as well.
The machine is supposed to be easy to use but this gives the user a false impression by emulating a 2D printer’s draft mode. I don’t see how that is easy.
My take from my quick read of the initial announcement was that draft can go onto your masking, but burn through to the material, so great check for alignment. But if so, surprised that fast looks lighter.
Does anyone know how the speeds compare? Would be good to have the official use definition for each.
I like the idea of high quality light and dark…
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A thing that took draft about 2 minutes to cut had a time estimate of 6 to 8 minutes in hq. Didnt cut it in hq yet so don’t know what is the exact time. This should give you an idea though.
One thing that everyone who is new to lasers is going to not appreciate is the time estimate the GF provides after rendering for Print. It’s spot on. Every other laser I’ve used the time estimate (if provided at all) is all over the board so it’s not even worth checking it - it all then comes down to experience with similar projects.
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That will be because it renders the whole job to a waveform before downloading it to the GF. So it has calculated all the motion to the exact resolution of the waveform file.
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The lack (at least much reduced) level of over-burn at the corners suggests HQ is more than just power settings. It may be using a different algorithm as well. With the overburn on Draft mode, if you increased power (3-4 times based on the speed difference quoted elsewhere in the thread) the overburn could end up burning all the way through the material on the corners.
I think it’s a tradeoff.
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I don’t think so because it is just a preset. You can switch to manual and see the settings, so it isn’t something you couldn’t do before manually with right speed / power combination.
Yep. I’ve worked with lasers that have a “time estimate” before and honestly they were all kind of crap. Kind of annoying especially when I had to pay per minute.
The worst are when you’re time limited so the next guy can get his project in and they tell you about 10 minutes left that your job (that was scheduled for an hour per the software) is only about 60% done so do you want them to cancel now or wait and cancel when the hour’s up (and the job is still only 3/4 done)…
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Seems mostly now it’s just kibitzing for it’s own sake until officially deciding to cancel order.
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One thing about the draft quality of the score is that I’m find efficient is that it scores enough to go through the masking without leaving a darker margin. Then I can pull off masking and do painting or positiong of insets and not have too much of a margin if I don’t want.
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