Weekly Highlights for the Week of January 1, 2017

[jamesdhatch]

Last Week’s Highlights:

Weekly Highlights for 25-Dec-16

Weekly highlights for the 1st week of a marvelous new year!

Staff Highlights and Quotable Quotes:

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New Years Status Update from Dan

New Years Update (Jan '17)

I hope everyone had a wonderful New Years! We tend to take turns taking holidays at Glowforge - folks who took time off during Thanksgiving worked through December, while folks who were pushing through Thanksgiving were here most of the month. No major updates as we push forward to getting your Glowforge delivered later this year (details on the schedule were in our last update), but folks have asked to hear monthly updates, so I’m going to share some of the odds and ends this month. Software…

Glowforge Software Updates Trivia:

@dan

While most of what you’d think of as “features” come from the cloud, there’s a lot of important plumbing in the firmware, like the experience for getting your Glowforge up and running online for the first time, the coordination of various hardware components, the drivers, etc.

Each Glowforge is on a “channel” that determines which firmware it gets. We have the ability to put different units on different channels, e.g. one for beta, one for in-house, etc. .

Does non-Proofgrade material require manual focusing?

Rounded Corners

No, all materials are auto-focused. Easy to see where you might get that idea, though. Currently, the software needs a thickness estimate for layout purposes - that’s determined automatically for Proofgrade materials, but asks you to type it in for non-Proofgrade. The actual cut should made from the laser depth measurement for all materials, though.

Question on working with 3D format files

Celtic knot design redone in OpenSCAD

There are a few ways to do it, but it’s part of the file creation work flow (e.g. import into vectors software and put a cutline where you want it) rather than our software.

Exhaust tube length and bends

Prototype Quick Disconnect Magnetic Vent Hose Coupler

We’ve designed it for 8 ft and 2 90 degree bends.

Beta and Pre-Release Projects:

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Blizzard Box

Beta Project: Snowflake Wall Art

Happy Holidays folks! One of my Christmas gifts for my Mom was this snowflake design wall art thingy. It’s a shallow box made of 1/8 plywood held together by slots, tabs, and finger joints at the corners. The face and frame are painted white and I did my best to give the back panel a weathered look. The snowflakes were traced in CAD from images of real snowflakes. [image] And here’s the design layout in CAD; front, sides, and back. [image] And a couple of photos of the finished product. …

Engraving on Glass, Slate, Aluminum, Cutting Foam Board, Cardstock

Pre-Release | From box to cut

Cheap glass from a dollar store picture frame. [image] [image] [image] Slate coaster (also from the dollar store) [image] [image] [image] Anodized Aluminum (targeting tests) [image] I made a grid in Illustrator and exported it as a SVG. But I would prefer either dragable guides or a ‘dimmed’ grid that lines up with the guides already in the UI. [image] [image] Foam Board (Dollar store - Test fit for a mount I was working on) [image] [image] 3D Printing part (test fit) [image] …

Bye-Bye 2016

Goodbye 2016

Happy New Year! Last night I had a few friends over for a party. We needed to send 2016 out in style, so I knocked up a laser cut 2016 with a stand as a party decoration, and decided we would light it on fire to ring out the old year. [image] I wanted it to feel substantial so I made the numbers nice and large. I should have taken the time to measure my fire place a little more carefully though, because when the time came the numbers barely fit inside. Along with that, a little overzealous a…

Hello 2017

2017: Happy New Year to All!

First time cutting cardboard, a shoe box of some Michael Jordan sneakers. So these are custom Michael Jordan New Year’s glasses! [Happy 2017 Cutout Spectacles]

Leather and Wood Eyeglasses Case

Leather and Wood Eyeglass Cases

Ok. It took longer than 1/2 hour. 1 hour. Mainly because it was so difficult to nail the brass brads onto the edge of a round object. This was my longest piece of veg tanned leather. I had some 1/4" white cedar I milled up Monday. Perfect application. Padre Ramon is a priest from Mexico that is in a nearby parish. He always carries a reading glasses case. This is a bit big for his small glasses, but as proof of concept. Don’t know how it works doing a knockoff, but this is for testing purposes. …

Adhesives Box

Pre-Release | From box to cut

[image] [image] [image] [image]

Etching Mask for PCBs

Pre-Release | From box to cut

Etching mask for PCBs? Check. [image] (Did it at a low resolution to see if it would even work. And yes it’s inverted)

Double vs.Single Cuts on Acetal Plastic

Acetal plastic double vs single pass cuts

I did some 1/8” black acetal and tried doing a double pass at power 100 speed 30 and single at speed 15. Both worked well and I don’t see much difference in the cut quality. One thing that did stand out was that the double pass had a lot more white debris around the cut area similar to smoke stains on wood. I think this is because the debris can’t go out the back and has to come back through the top of the cut since it’s just a trough for the first part of a double pass cut. Here is the double …

How Loud is a Pre-Release Machine?

Pre-Release | How loud is it?

[image] [Pre-Release Unit - How loud is it?] [image] It’s about equal to our dyson @ around 10ft.

Engraving Anodized Aluminum

Pre-Release | Engraving Aluminium

Couple test engraves on anodized aluminum. [image] [image] [image]

Congratulations @takitus - Newest Pre-Releaser!

I am one with the Forge, the Forge is one with me

Last night I got a magical email from @Rita, and by this morning a glowforge arrived and was henceforth dubbed “the burninator”! I was up dancing all night. My girlfriend is not happy about how much sleep she got lol! First things first, the old K40 was removed to make room for the burninator! [image] Oh man! Its HERE!!! [image] Laser head unboxing [image] A bevy of proofgrade® materials to try out! Thanks guys! [image] This box is HUGE!!! [image] And here it is! In all its glory! …

Baby Groot

Pre-Release | I am Groot

In this week’s episode of lazyCAD, I make a base for a 3D print of baby groot with no measurements. I started out with the look I wanted to achieve with the base. [image] Then export that out and sprinkle some logo love. [image] Then slap baby groot in the glowforge and do a size check. Resized where needed. [image] Click the print button. Then press the only button on the 'forge. [image] Baby groot felt like he needed to inspect the work. [image] He approves. [image]

Sea Scene - Variable Grayscale Engraving

Pre-Release - Sea Scene

My girlfriend was really curious about how well the glowforge handled grayscale engraving, so we wanted to try to see if we could get everything into one file and how that would work out. Can it do vector and raster in one file? Turns out it works great! Here is the original drawing she made that I took a photo of and pulled into illustrator [image] I applied a compound masking path to it and copied the path to serve as the cut line to give it a bit of a border [image] I saved it as an SVG…

Rubber Initial Stamp

Updated: Natural Rubber Engraved Initials Stamp and Hallmark

I got a sheet of low odor rubber from Laserbits (along with a few other types of materials that await testing). I have no experience making rubber stamps other than taking big rubber bands in junior high and using an ink pen to write my name backwards on to make a quick stamp for wasting time in math class. [image] @dan requests that I do projects as separate posts so that they are more easily tracked and studied by everyone; however, I’ll just stick an update and another example of a stamp he…

Guardians of the Galaxy

Pre-Release | Guardians of the Galaxy

This exercise required both photoshop and illustrator. And this is the highest resolution engrave I’ve done to date (670 LPI). The front panel is 1/8" acrylic and the back is 1/4" cedar. It was getting late last night, so I didn’t get a chance to make the frame and set up the LEDs. [image] [image] [image] [image]

StarGate Engrave

Pre-Release - Detail Engraves, Proofgrade, and Why Masking Is Great

I spent a little while last night and a bit of tonight working on a new version of the stargate i made previously for my pops. It happens to be a great thing to do test cuts with because it has so much detail! Ive been scaling it down pretty small to keep engrave times down and now waste as much material in testing (ive cut like 6 of these). Below you will see two test engraves I did with different versions of the design. The first thing I will tell you is that the detail this can put out is a…

Lego Coasters

Pre-Release | Everything is awesome

Coasters my wife made. Front. [image] Back. [image] Maple Plywood (proofgrade) & adhesive cork (Jo Ann’s) 22 mins for the engraving & 16 secs for the cuts (the cork)

Engraving Comparison with K40 Laser

Pre-Release | Greyscale Engraving, A Comparison to the K40

Ive been waiting all day to make this post, I cant even tell you how happy I am to finally be typing it up! One of the posts I made when I first got my k40 was an engraving of Zenyatta from overwatch. [ Greyscale engrave ] I love this engrave, and really wanted to see how it would come out on the glowforge. I forgot about it in all of the excitement until @PFI-Guy reminded me last night. I woke up this morning thinking “ITS TIME!”… I went back, put in the image and hit print and this came …

Engraving on Marble

Pre-Release | Marble Madness

Engrave Marble? Check. [image] 675 lpi @ 17mins

Projects from Forum Members:

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Celtic Knot in OpenSCAD

Celtic knot design redone in OpenSCAD

Here is my take on @Jules’ Celtic Knot modelled in OpenSCAD . This script:- od = 100; id = 70; border = 2; thickness = 5; engrave_depth = 1; loops = 25; o_loop_width = 2; i_loop_width = 1; loop_aspect = 1.7; $fa = 1; $fs = 0.5; band = (od - id) / 2 - 2 * border; o_loop_d = band - 1; i_loop_d = o_loop_d - o_loop_width * 2; module ring(od, id, h, aspect = 1) { module elipse() scale([1, aspect]) circle(d = (od + id) / 2); linear_extrude(convexity = 2, he…

Engraving on Ceramic Tile

Engraving Porcelain Tile

I sent a couple samples of ceramic tile to @jared (Glowforge staff) last June to experiment with and he sent me back this photo. I’d image it would do an even better job now. [image]

Desktop Bookshelf

Desktop Bookshelf (1/4" Wood)

Hey all! I haven’t gotten my Glowforge yet (), but I’ve got a design based on a small bookshelf that my grandmother had sitting next to her bed for as far back as I can remember. I don’t have access to a laser cutter, but I believe my math is all correct on this. This is the original: [image][image] Here’s the plans to use to make your own: [image] Download SVG: http://thebancast.com/misc/Helen’s%20Shelf.svg Download AI: http://thebancast.com/misc/Helen’s%20Shelf.ai Btw, if any…

Fusion 360 to Glowforge Workflow

Fusion 360 to Glowforge workflow

With the help of @marmak3261 and @Jules I have prepared a short tutorial on F360 to glowforge workflow. It is in PDF so I don’t have to fight the forums formatting. I don’t have a GF so there could be mistakes due to that even with @marmak3261 generous help. As with all things GF, this is a moving target and subject to change. F360 to Glowforge workflow 2.pdf (932.1 KB)