Meet Glowforge, your at-home 3D laser printer that makes magical things at the push of a button. Easily create custom products with a professional laser cutter.
Operation Pie@deanputney @danshapiro Excuse my french here, but holy shit this is so awesome!!! I was watching the video and I'll give you the play by play...
- ok, cool.
- ok, that's cool...
- ok, HOLY SHIT!
But seriously though, having something like this can return the investment ten fold. I might have missed it, but what are the file extensions that you can use with this? EPS, AI, or PDF?
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Startup TV@sethlouey The drone! I had a chance to hunt this too.
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@sethlouey Thanks Seth! There's a partial list at http://glowforge.com/tech-specs/ as well as a lot of other goodies. We expect to be pretty flexible in what we ingest and add a lot more to that list over time.
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@erictwillis @sethlouey The drone's real; we've got two of them with us at Makerfaire. Dual counterrotating rubberband gattling guns unload roughly 80 bands/sec. These were built on an Iris+ frame, and use a pair of laser-cut delrin gears (plus an extra motor) to drive both gattling guns.
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This is quite cool but let's face it: nobody in their right mind can think a $1000+ price point will get this thing into mass adoption.
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Fabnik@aaroncrocco The average PC was $2-3K in the 90s, and a lot of people bought them. I don't see the price point as that crazy, especially given how much more day-to-day use most people can get from a laser cutter vs 3D printer. It's really a big deal if it's as easy to use as it looks - machines with similar specs are ubiquitous on Ebay, but really hard to use.
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Venn Read@aaroncrocco your right. The wow affect end's, when you see the price tag.
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Operation Pie@aaroncrocco Honestly though, if you bought it and made some stuff to sell, you'd make back your money ten fold.
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UnityI've seen this in action, and I'm very impressed. The price point really opens this technology up to a lot of makers who previously couldn't afford access to a 3D laser printer.
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This is seriously awesome! I'm curious about some of the 3D products in the catalog are made -- what is the design & assembly process? The video seems to mostly show flat surfaces stacked together. Is there a link to a browsable catalog with instructions for things like, say, the yarn & plywood glow lamps? I'm curious about the extra work required outside of the printing process and what shapes are being cut.
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@liora_ We'll be launching a catalog when we ship, but if you'd like to see a moment-by-moment process, check out the Tested.com video at http://www.tested.com/tech/54314...
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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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@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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Pretty amazing what 3D printers are able to do these days. I remember a company called hellonomad that made a pretty cool USB charging cable some time back. Excited about the possibilities of new materials these printers are able to carve up
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@kenetix Sorry to be pedantic, but it's not a 3D printer. It's a 2D cutter (subtractive rather than additive).
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I see 'Form 2' under the 'Similar Products' tab. While 3D Printing is additive, Laser Cutting/ Engraving is subtractive manufacturing. The use of the words 3D, print and printer are for marketing purposes ;)
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