Jon Adair
@jonadair · Cofounder, Thinkamingo
The way this is marketed as a revolutionary "printer" instead of an incrementally improved laser cutter / engraver aggravates me, maybe more than it should, but that doesn't take away from the product.
If the quality and reliability hold up, it's not a bad price point. The Universal Laser machine we have at Tampa Hackerspace runs $16,000 new, though there are others like Full Spectrum in this lower price range. It is a little hard to justify as an individual purchase, but it could easily be a money-maker for the Etsy crowd. https://www.etsy.com/market/lase...
The camera system for scanning and auto-focusing is an interesting idea. I don't know how the software will work out, but it wouldn't be hard to improve on what most lasers use today - a special print driver that works with CorelDRAW.
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Dan Shapiro
@danshapiro · Glowforge, Robot Turtles, Hot Seat book
@jonadair Totally understand, Jon. I shook my head when I heard someone describe CNC milling as "reverse 3D printing". But after talking to hundreds of customers, everyone kept calling the darn thing either a "laser printer" or "3d printer". Something I learned earlier in startup land is that it's better to learn from your customers than teach them, so...
I know experts like you will understand exactly what it is: some really transformative stuff (like depth sensing, variable depth engraving, kerf management, and a bunch of machine vision stuff) applied to the baseline of traditional CNC laser cutter/engraver technology.
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