July Announcement in June! (Wild!)
This is your regularly scheduled July update⌠earlier than usual, because we have an abundance of awesome to share.
Shipments have started (hereâs the update we emailed you about it ). Weâre hard at work making every Glowforge printer better by improving our software as shipments are rolling off the line.
One thing weâve heard from you is that itâs helpful to hear about software changes that we make. For that reason, weâve created a new page called Latest Improvements (Latest Improvements ). WâŚ
Does the Filter draw power from the Glowforge?
It does have its own power switch, but it also has its own wall plug. It does not draw power from your Glowforge.
Does the Glowforge communicate directly with the filter?
The Glowforge does communicate directly with the filter.
Can you switch back and forth from filter to outside venting by removing the U bend and connecting the hose?
Can you use the filter on the same circuit as the Glowforge?
Itâs not uncommon in our experience for people to want to plug the Glowforge and the air filter into separate circuits. They can both be on the same circuit, but there shouldnât be much else on that circuit.
If I wanted to deep engrave with multiple passes, on each pass some material will be removed. Should I adjust the focus on subsequent passes or is it automatic?
You can set this up by assigning focus manually to each step, but it doesnât do it automatically yet.
What kind of Proofgrade woods are best for 3-D bas-relief engraving?
So far Proofgrade hardwoods are only available at 1/8", so the 3D depth is pretty limited. All the species we carry seem to work equally well, though.
Can I leave my Glowforge to someone else in my will?
The best plan is to make sure your estate has access to your email. If thatâs true, they can arrange delivery should something (heaven forbid) happen to you.
What email addresses should I whitelist to make sure I see the notification about my pending shipment from Glowforge?
hello@glowforge.com support@glowforge.com
Forum Trivia: June 18th - Happy Cakeday to @dan June 22nd - Happy Cakeday to @bailey & @neil
Here on the Discourse forum, your Cakeday is the anniversary of the day you joined the forum, and everyone gets alerted to the fact by a little slice of cake appearing next to your username in all your posts. So if you see one next to someoneâs name, wish 'em a Happy Cakeday! (If you see a whole cake, itâs their birthday.)
Tutorials and Training
Did you know that there are tutorials to help you get familiar with the terminology and how to use the Glowforge interface now? Check out the Community Glowforge Tutorials: Table of Contents in the Glowforge Tips and Tricks section. The first link for Designing for the Laser has a lot of handy information to help you get started quickly.
Sticking this here for now about the GFUI and keyboard shortcuts: One tip that @cynd11 dropped somewhere along the line was the spacebar activating the hand/move artboard in the GFUI. I had been clicking on the hand and clicking on the pointer and it drove me nuts to have to do it. Space bar and it toggles. Let up and back to select.
Note: We are now adding our own submissions from the Made on a Glowforge category here into the Weekly Highlights, which are being set up as a Wiki.Add your submissions to the current week Draft edition in the Everything Else Category.
Add your projects below here:
1. Copy the link on your post. (Click the link icon at the bottom of your post and CTRL+C or CMD+C).2. Click the pencil icon at the bottom of this post.3. Scroll down in the left panel and paste your link in a blank space at the bottom. (CTRL+V)
I saw some GOT stuff on the web the other day that someone had posted, of a gorgeous CNC milled house Stark shield, and figured Iâd get working on a House Stahk Boston edition:
First the 3D stuff in proof grade walnut was cut out, which is extremely intricate. Weeding was not fun!
[image] Itâs funny how bright it looks under the GFâs lights, but of course it is dark walnut.
Next the backdrop of the shield in proof grade maple ply, with scoring for the intricate parts so I could locate them oâŚ
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If you recall my set of hand sawn from a log cedar coasters , Kathy asked what I was going to do with the larger log. At first I thought âlarge coastersâ but thatâs kind of stupid (I guess some huge beer stein, but really?) and then the idea came to me: recipe trivets
John is one of the worldâs leading authorities on mushroom poisoning (heâs boarded in Emergency medicine and is a toxicologist) and as an outgrowth of that raises shiitakes which are sold to all sorts of local restaurants. I said, âŚ
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Today my spare stuff from Monoprice arrived so I could repurpose a mini PC I had. A while back the only service in our lab available was crazy Verizon TLS service ($1800/month for 10mbit service - yeah) due to the fact that A) brookline MA is crazy and B) the building was opened during the Lincoln administration - no seriously). The problem is the TLS service requires a ârealâ router, not a consumer router, and our IT group supplied one to me, but we had a pair of these. I made a router out of oâŚ
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Continuing the discussion and testing from @jamesdhatch 's tests here:
Iâve been running through a few tests to determine optimal cut, score and engrave settings for the materials I use the most⌠in my case they are the PG materials so at least Iâm not duplicating his efforts.
Here are a couple of leather masks that I made last year, prior to receiving a Glowforge PRU. These were hand cut, carved and sculpted, then dyed, painted, sealed and embellished. Theyâre variants on a design theme that Iâve been playing with over the last decade + . When I made them, I thought theyâd make a cute pair but they ultimately sold to two unrelated clients.
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Amusingly enough, I was recently contacted by two more (also unrelated) people, asking for custom variants on this eveâŚ
Ordered a pack of the veneer online so I was looking for some inspiration thumbing through the 40 pieces and when I saw this unusual one, fire was the first thing that popped into my head.
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What I didnât expect was the chatoyancy it would exhibit when it was finished!
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That veneer is a perfect choice for this! Inlay into an engraving in
I decided with the warmer weather and sweating drinks I should protect my desks and tables. I worked up these fun little coasters out of some unfinished birch plywood on a retro whim. I like the unfinished ply better for this since theyâre more absorbent.
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I may try doing a round in cork as well
Predator fly, predator fly, does whatever a predator fly does. Clear acrylic predator fly.
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Hard drive failed, taking most everything with it.
A file I had been working (learning) on for a week, pushing against the walls of my ignorance - poof. Hadnât had the need for a backup in many years (this from a guy who spends an inordinate amount of time backing up (as in two steps back).
But, I do have the ground Iâve gained, many thanks to @mpipes , @marmak3261 and the tutorials @Jules put together for us. This community is amazing.
So, got the machine back up with a new SSD last night andâŚ
Weâve all been there. You need to do a bit of maintenance or make a home repair so you gather your materials & tools, get halfway through it and â discover youâre missing a tool you absolutely cannot do without. [âŚ
I tried my hand at cutting Hobby Lobby craft felt today. Pretty good results after playing around with settings. Hobby Lobby had a variety of felt products. I researched craft felt and found that every kind I saw was Acrylic/Polyester. I am PRETTY SURE that these donât contain any PVC, but did not do any burn tests and wasnât able to confirm with Hobby Lobbyâs website. OK - disclaimers over.
Here are two of the types I cut. The green is a fairly thick sheet. Sold at 9x12 inches for 79 ceâŚ
Been really busy around here with the Summer, a vacation where my Daughter received a proposal of marriage, garden tilled, planted - then the hard drive borked. One thing after another, itâs been a conspiracy to keep me away from the laser.
Anyway a few material tests that were interesting.
First is to see how far through a 3/4" piece of oak the PRU can make it @ 100% and 4 IPM - right at a 1/2". Happy about that!
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Cool to see how the laser penetrates between the hard and soft wood gâŚ
Hello folks!
Not the sexiest project, but a good demonstration of the power to easily craft something useful to your own specifications when the selection at the store isnât cutting it.
We dedicated a corner of the living room as a craft area for my son and got him a table and some shelving. However the shelves donât accommodate a standard landscape orientation letter tray for storing papers. So I made one to fit on the GF.
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Hopefully this will help keep constructâŚ
So after spending 2 days with the Glowforge i can say that I am extremely happy with the final machine. I finally just took 5 minutes to really look inside it and it really does look and feel fantastic. Well worth the wait in my opinion.
Here is a quick recap of my first few projects.
First i would like to thank @dan and staff for really testing the packaging. UPS was less the careful with my unit.
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I basically could see the bottom of the GF unit when he pulled it off the truck. But âŚ
Second of my power tests. 20lb white copier paper. Standard Staples fare. I want to do some things with son #1 (Flash artist) for son #2âs wedding using various card & paper stocks.
What I did tonight is not possible on the K40 or Redsail. The power control on those simply donât go this low.
Last year #1 son made this save the date announcement for his brotherâs wedding. Itâs a b&w pen & ink drawing (using a 25" Centiq tablet so Iâm not sure any real ink was consumed in its production). But thâŚ
UPS just dropped of. Some delivery stats. Box on side in truck. Shows some travel rash, but not too bad. No signature required.
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Let the fun begin!
Iâm going to be making a bunch of smaller projects that are probably not individually worth sharing, but which may be of interest to some. Iâll use this post as a sort of log and Iâll try to include notes about anything that I learned.
Iâll start with a very simple round coaster with the Overwatch (video game) logo, made out of 1/8" Proofgrade Maple Plywood.
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This still isnât quite what I intended, but itâs close. The logo was intended to be engraved in two different shades, but it loâŚ
Supplies: 12X12" Cardstock
Op time: 8 mins 33 sec
So after the announcement yesterday about low power pewâing. I did a couple tests. I was impressed. My wife was over the moon. And this is because with the Cameo & the Curio it canât do small tightly spaced intricate cuts. The drag knife just makes a mess of things. But with light, there is no âdragâ per-say.
Thou this post does not demo that but the results are pretty cool. And so are butterflies btw.
AI. (Nothing fancy, I just grabbed this âŚ
Now with more screaming brain. Clear acrylic and maple ply.
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There are a few times a year that Iâm fortunate enough to get to spend a weekend with friends who are scattered all over the country (and a little bit all over the world.) Where we manage to gather bounces around, but this year one of the gatherings weâve most been looking forward to has been Seattle Pride. I didnât expect to be living here when we started planning this last October, but since I am and since I get to make occasional use a Glowforge at the office, I really wanted to do a little sâŚ
Made a simple coat hook for my cube at work. The random one I scrounged just wasnât going to cut it.
Three layers of Proofgrade maple ply laminated together for strength. Three hooks (hat, jacket, bag) and just in time for the heat wave so I wonât be wearing a jacket any time soon. Still it holds my headphones and sunglasses just fine.
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My first design was huge. I had a 2" width for all the pieces and deep, deep hooks. Each one of my proposed three layers would havâŚ
My first edge-lit acrylic sign attemptâŚ
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It came out exactly as I wanted.
A couple of things I learnedâŚ
I specifically made the heart 3x the size of the slot in the base. I wanted to see if the light would translate out 100% on either side. It really does. Maybe next time Iâll go bigger!
I made the heart shape of the acrylic meet the bottom of the acrylic in a place I thought would be attractive. And it is. But I probably should have altered that so that I maximize the light coâŚ
A few weeks ago I was given a very generous gift by @shollg : a Seklema hold-down mat, for testing in the Glowforge. This mat is designed for holding items down for engraving by either rotary engravers or in a laser. Thanks again so much, @shollg !
I was holding off on testing it until the new low power settings were available because I was afraid the mat would be destroyed if I couldnât dial down the power a bit. Now that low power is available, I tested the mat today. It works great!!! âŚ
As my husband mentioned, Iâve been waiting not-so-patiently for this low-power mode, and now that itâs here Iâve been doing a non-stop happy dance. Here is my first attempt at a low power cut that could have never worked on a vinyl cutter:
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A tongue in cheek reference to perpetuating a long-standing family joke. A (approx.) $10 LED base that does the usual RGB cycle, but also can stay on one color. The advantage of this base over the other cheapo ones is that this can run either by AC or batteries, plus the lights are better. Also, the cheapo bases only cycle through RGB.
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Cut
5% / 80 / 2 passes (need to play with this still scared of fire ha)
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Engrave ( would prob go a bit more power or a bit slower for slightly darker
1% / 335
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The infamous corner issue (power is too high in corners and burns through)
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Having so much fun testing the new low power settings on my Glowforge! Clockwise from center: 1/4" acrylic, 24lb typing paper (parchment finish), Proofgrade thin leather, Grunge paper, 1/8" Baltic birch plywood, Proofgrade 1/8" maple ply, 24 lb parchment
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I wanted to try out the low power settings, so what should I cut⌠Narwhals.
I stole got the image from @smcgathyfay âs Narwhal phone stand design.
I decided to try out the blank playing cards I ordered.
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01H4CZQ14
And here we are!
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The cuts were deeper where it had to slow down around corners. You can see the burn marks. Oddly enough, only one pinhole is visible from the back.
But wait, this is card stock! Lets see what happens when I grab a regâŚ
