Glowforge release

[Dave Sheldrake]

Kickstarter pay out when the KS funding finishes its run. So in effect if the KS has finished then they will have paid out the money.

[Matt McCoy]

If its a kickstarter.... Nothing

If its a "pre-order" via a companies website then they are legally bound to abide by commerce law and fulfill there proposed outcome for the funds

Kickstarter pay out when the KS funding finishes its run. So in effect if the KS has finished then they will have paid out the money.

Not a Kickstarter.

[Jack Clague]

Unless it's an LLC or Ltd then they can just fold the company

Yep true that

Not a Kickstarter.

Ahh ok, haven't been following the glowforge scene so wasn't sure.

[Art Mann]

Whoever claimed a December "release" date was mistaken, whether he realized it or not. It appears the company is shipping a few beta test units. I wouldn't consider a product "released" until it is for sale to the general public. People who are paying in advance are simply buying a promise.

[Bill George]

So do you pay In Advance or not? It looks like on the Kickstarter site, your just Pledging to pay.

[Rich Harman]

So do you pay In Advance or not? It looks like on the Kickstarter site, your just Pledging to pay.

On Kickstarter you are charged immediately when the campaign ends, if it meets its goal.

[Jay Selway]

I have a pretty big problem with Glowforge. They've been marketing the laser as a 'home accessory.' See the video where the family has the laser set up in the kitchen with no visible exhaust and children using it. I think we're going to hear about somebody burning down their house, or poisoning themselves by not properly exhausting.

I keep getting people asking me if it's legit and my standard response is that I would never buy one.

[Jerome Stanek]

I started this post way back in Dec of last year and still waiting for someone that has received their laser. Will Glowforge ever ship out any units. I see some say that the beta units have been shipped but still no one is saying that they have gotten one.

[Dave Sheldrake]

The last I read from GF was that they were having problems with power supply power scaling. They commented that the top end power was working well but low end power was a problem. The delivery dates have been pushed back to December this year so they are saying.

This is the problem....anybody with the slightest knowledge of how to design and build a laser control or DC resonator will know you never work top down...EVER, you work bottom up as that is the hardest part to get stability. The average secondary school kid can hook up a high voltage low current supply from a Fluorescent light starter and generate a beam from a CO2 based lasing gas.

It's yet another tangible demonstration of how fantastic GF are at selling but don't have the mix of staff that actually understand laser technology.

[Klaus Madsen]

How come I can't see the latest answers in this thread?
I can see there have been made comments today, and when I go to the last page the newest post I can see is from May???

[Klaus Madsen]

And an update, I can't even see my own post, even that it says that the last post is mine????

[William Adams]

@Klaus Madsen --- I can see your two most recent posts, but nothing else from you. Probably a mod deleted them --- this thread has been going on for a long while, and has often gotten off-track, or been cluttered w/ posts which go against the rules here, so I suspect that it's gotten to be habitual to just clear it out of problem posts w/o the normal contact / warning.

To get back on track, there's been some interesting discussion of lasers on the k40 subreddit of reddit.com which has resulted in a wiki page which may be a useful reference for people interested in such.

It'll be interesting to see how the Glowforge release plays out over the long-term in terms of parts availability, development of manufacturing capacity, &c.

[Dave Sheldrake]

One thing I didn't know was that it's duty cycle limited. (it can only operate for a time before it has to stop and "rest")

It's a closed loop cooling system.

A true 40 watt tube is at best 15% efficient,the rest is lost as heat into the cooling system (- some ambient losses via the pipework) so to get 40 watts out you have to put in a minimum of 300 ('im being generous on the numbers), minus the 40 that leaves 260 of latent heat. Thus far the story from GF is that it will operate for 20 minutes continuous until it has to cool down.

Given the tube is only going to be a real world 32 watt (width of the case) you won't get much done with 32 watts from a cheap Chinese tube in 20 minutes.

GF have said that many of the parts of the machine are Chinese made and assembled in the US so I'm not seeing any difference between them and any other Chinese machine.

As to the PSU issues, that's one of the simplest parts of a DC laser, they fixed it...great !...it should never have been a problem in the first place if anybody there had the remotest understanding of DC lasers.

[Dave Sheldrake]

Something Bert has mentioned but is actually a huge consideration beyond the time. Beam profiles change in DC tubes when they get hot, the window to operate a DC tube efficiently with a stable beam is only +/- 1.2 - 2 degrees. On a narrow body tube it should be kept between 20 to 24 degree's (on a wide body, 17 - 21 degree's)

Hit 24 on a narrow body and you will start losing tube life exponentially as it goes above that. Temperature stability is absolutely essential in DC tubes.

Most of the things they are having problems with doesn't require laser experts, most of them are "Lasers 101" that anybody with even a remote understanding of laser physics should know.

Something else...Trading Standards here (A Government agency) are very concerned about the Wireless / Network control of the Leetro 6585 controllers, they don't much like the idea that a machine can be moved remotely and it's causing some big problems for vendors here to comply.(The same reason I had to disable remote control on my Mitsubishi)

[Jerome Stanek]

Watched the video and wondered what would happen if you put a windows based laptop in it. Also they make a big deal about Macbooks but they use a Dell to do the design