With all the trouble with the camera alignment and sizing who would want to copy this.
I saw a picture of one of their engravings that needed 4 files put together to form it as to to small of a buffer and you can see each section.
Printable View
It looks like GF uses 2 steppers to move the Y-axis. Is that common on any level of laser? Seems like most use a single stepper and belt(s) to move both sides of the gantry on Y, but I'm pretty green.
My ULS uses one stepper for Y, located in the center of the back wall, belts to both sides. Then again, it's smallish machine with a fixed-tube layout: the RF tube assembly weighs about 35lbs, so you really don't want to move it around. If the GF's tube moves in Y, the gantry is heavier and two motors makes sense. (I've seen several CNC routers laid out that way.)
DS andstaff
I wanted to give avid forum readers the very first heads up: we’re going to be increasing prices on Dec 14 to $4,000 for Basic and $8,000 for Pro. We’ll also be removing the ability to upgrade your order, so if you want to go from basic to pro, now is the last chance. You can do so at glowforge.com/upgrades13.
We do have a serious set of bugs that prevents some upgrades from processing, so if glowforge.com/upgrades13 gives you an error, contact support@glowforge.com and we’ll process it manually. (This is slower and not recommended if you can use the glowforge.com/upgrades13
OMG and after looking at the way the GF is put together it would almost be impossible to upgrade the tube or switch it all over to readily available off the shelf parts. Once you buy your stuck with it forever, and Zero resale value. Maybe I have missed something.... where does the 3D capability's come into the picture?
$4000 is about what I paid for my latest purchase - a LG900N with at 100W RECI tube. That includes cost to ship from China to Faroe Islands which is about as expensive as it gets. Just one order paid for 2/3 of the machine. It will run all day without the need for the tube to cool down every now and again. It doesn't have a camera system, it will not fit on my kitchen table, it doesn't do processing in the cloud but I can manage without those "features".
I'm sure there are still people who will buy it at that price point but I can't help feel it is very poor value for money. Sinjoe have recently launched a couple of desktop models that could be an alternative to a GF.
https://store.sinjoe.com/index.php?r...ory&path=86_73
A informed intelligent buyer by now would have bailed out. So who is left? Not hard to figure out.
not only that but reading the forum the complaints about how slow it is and the cloud not working sometimes are starting to pile up
and 8000 for a pro now your getting close to westerns machine prices , well very good Chinese machine prices anyway
Bill has it. I've got about $6500 in my 1300x900 80w machine with it delivered to my door. (11 months ago) That is duty, broker fees and shipping to nearly center of country.
Dave do you mean a CO2 galvo? I didn't think the DC tubes could work well in a galvo setup. I've been looking for a cheap CO2 galvo to do small engravings on wood- is that the type of machine you're talking about? If so what are they called? My google-fu must have failed me, as I only found very expensive ones the last time I looked. I don't have enough "business case" to justify much expense (I'm a hobbyist), but at $2600 for a new toy to get my feet wet, well now we're talking.
Searching for "galvo laser" gets me all the Fiber lasers, which obviously don't do the woodworking stuff that I have in mind. Any tips on a vendor for such a thing?
Yea, Sinjoe do them, Weike do them as do Shenhui, they work well :)
Drop Felix a line at Sinjoe and ask, most of them, run 60 watt CL1200 EFR tubes so are pretty reliable as well.
CO2 Galvo will usually bring up RF machines, those are pretty expensive :( the only drawback with DC Galvo's is the tube life, due to the tube being triggered so much and so often the tube life is often a year to 18 months at best but with cheap replacements well worth it
Rise times on DC tubes are slower, that's why they have a max setting of 9,000mm per second rather than the 15,000 mm per second of an RF (even though you will rarely ever get close to either of those numbers on a small tube under 200 watts)
As I have duel nationality I was wondering if congress could strike up a new felony offence on my behalf
When people say "I did my first print on my glowforge today" there must be some kind of law enacted that automatically slaps them with a rotten fish.........lots