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.
@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.
I'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.
@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?
@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.
@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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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.
@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).
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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