His video skills have improved a ton though. Witty banter on camera?! Being entertaining and informative?! Today I learned sometimes Dan is silly.
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I’m not quite sure I understand?
There are rulers across the side and top
They appear to actually be degrading.
Apparently you missed the video where I trebuched cows in slow motion earlier.
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I absolutely did. I’m going to fix this oversight asap.
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I actually think they’ve gotten worse - jkjk
EDIT:[quote=“dan, post:13, topic:2876”]
They appear to actually be degrading.
[/quote]
He already noticed this lol 
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From my limited experience with going from design to machine, the normal step for CNCs is to get the design into gcode. In some cases the design software writes the gcode as a plugin or extension. In some cases there is a dedicated program to interface with the machine to work the design into the gcode. So in my workflow it is Inkscape > Gcode Tools Extension > Chilipeppr > CNC Simulation. It has been a challenge to understand all the parameters that each step along the way throws at me. For example, with a CNC router, I had to understand how the bit profile works. It wasn’t clear to me what the cut angle was referring to until I understood that it was all about whether the bit plunges in at 90 degrees to the surface without moving, or gradually going down to cut in angle. It took me a while to just appreciate all the parameters in Chilipeppr.
One aspect of Glowforge that I know is different is the cloud-based UI. The Chinese K40 folks all seem to bemoan the software that ships with their machines. It seems that quite a few keep some venerable Windows XP machines up, dedicated to their lasers. Then there is the perennial question: will it run on a Mac? Linux? Windows 10? This is a major selling point of the Glowforge for me. I don’t want to be tied down to any architecture or operating system.
Mind you, this is all simulation for me since I don’t have a CNC yet. I have started on the electronics of a CNC router and have the motors, a tinyg and a power supply. So I’m just spinning tape at the moment!
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Something I noticed (could be angle or quality of video too) is that when @dan placed the little face on screen inside the first eye it was cut much farther left than it was placed in the image. Are there rulers on the bed for material alignment? Is there some kind of calibration stage to make sure the image/camera placement matches actual cut placement? How do you handle cutting when precision placement is required? For example, I have an iPhone that’s a one shot, I can’t screw it up. In a Trotec I’d align it with the right and top guide rail and place the engrave plate 4mm in from both edges to ensure correct placement of the engrave. Is something similar possible with GF? Eyeballing and camera placement is a cool gizmo, but by the numbers placement is often more valuable.
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Haha if there’s not, you can bet this will be the first thing I cut for my glowforge.
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Dan said there are rulers along the top and side.
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I think you may have missed the point of his post. Regardless of what the rulers say, if you place an image on the camera captured image of the material, you would expect it to cut there, which it apparently did not.
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This leads me to wonder how we can reliably align a cut/engrave session with an existing feature on the material being cut. With the lasers I’ve used in the past, I had a little red dot that I could assign to be the origin. I’m now wondering if that approach is more accurate than using a camera image for alignment.
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He mentioned in another post theyre still dialing in the optical functionality. I hope they get it down because placing everything in the center to get best optical alignment would be a bit of a pain
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From what I’ve seen and read lately on these forums and the world outside, there seems to be a desire for some drawing features that are found in other apps.
A quick summary:
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Basic Drawing tools: line, arc, circle, oval, eclipse, spline.
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Cutting tools: fold/perforation options and adjustability.
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Transformation: scale (1 and 2 axis), copy-paste (associative would be a nice option too, for modifying several copies at once)
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Extras: duplicate along curve/line, Boolean operations (add, subtract, divide, intersect).
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Etching: images
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Depth cut control: some way to define depth of cut/etching
Did I miss anything? Oh, offsets of course (just added).
Anything else to add to the hopper?
I think most designers couldn’t care less about the trace feature, which is frustrating because it seems to be the focus most often in these videos and posts. It’s a cool gimmick and great for selling, but most people buying a laser are buying it to realize designs they’re making elsewhere. For me personally the questions I have haven’t been answered since I started asking them a year ago.
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How does two sided engraving/cutting work? We’ve heard that this is a feature over and over and haven’t gotten even a basic explanation of how it works
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Is there any way to align your cuts/engraves besides the camera? The camera is great for the gimmick features, for most of us we want to use it to do good, accurate cuts and engraves. Eyeballing isn’t an acceptable solution.
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Borders/outlines around cuts defined in mm/in.
I like the end of the video with @Dan surrounded by glowforges, he forgot to mention it but mine is the one with the lid up
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I remember seeing Dan give a description of how the process for two-sided engraving and cutting works in another thread somewhere…
Basically, the double sided alignment will be flipped across the long axis. That’s going to make it work well for rectangular edge cases, but might be tough for circular designs.
And you are correct, it is not going to be dead-on accurate for alignment in those cases. If I were cutting a circular coaster, I would cut and engrave one side, leave the excess board in place to use as a jig, and just flip over the coaster to engrave the back.
Or we might need to create jigs for double sided engraving.
Something like this where you designed a small nub into your coaster that would be quick to cut off afterwards with an exacto (or the laser), but could help with alignment, might work pretty well.
Don’t know yet.
But they are working on it - I’ve seen it discussed. 
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Thank you @dan and @karaelena! That was so awesome to see!!!
So easy! Can’t wait to see it live at MakerFaire, and of course…AT MY HOUSE!
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Not sure what is built in, but I register in different ways depending upon my needs with respect to the part I am making.
- If you can cut and engrave along with an entire peripheral cut then your alignment will always be perfect. The camera will be plenty accurate for rough alignment of the raw part.
- If you are engraving on an existing part and not making any cuts and the camera registration is not accurate enough, you will probably need to create a cradle or nest to lay your part in. This can be laser cut depending upon the part. Kind of like of animation cells are put on a pegged fixture to make sure they are lined up.
My main point is that this might not be a function of the Glowforge but the ingenuity of the person using it.
At least that is what we find on our lasers, routers, mills, at work and I don’t see this laser as any different.
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Absolutely. I can’t count the number of index tables and inserts I’ve made to make sure my lasered parts align. That said, I have fixed hard stops in a trotec and where I fire the laser is where it goes. It seems that, at least so far demonstrated, GF isn’t doing that.
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I get what you are saying, but at the same time there are cases where I have less than a mm of material left over after after a cut, and poor optical alignment could cause it to cut outside the material essentially wasting that piece. This is one of the things I want to avoid.
The other issue I see is engraving something that is already in it’s final shape. Currently I use a piece of paper or cardboard to test the cut before dropping the object on the bed. If optical alignment isn’t perfect I’ll have to keep doin this, which is a couple of extra steps I’d like to not have to do.
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