[ger21]

I put a lot of the blame on the people that sent them $28 million dollars for a product that did not yet exist.

Especially if you've ever funded anything on Kickstarter, where everything is late.

I funded a flashlight that took a year longer than they thought it would.

[LeeWay]

I know that anytime I have done R&D and had a working prototype, one of the hardest things to do was to calculate the amount of time it would take to get to the production model and start making them available. I am getting better at it, but only because I almost hit my estimate recently.
That is the closest I have gotten and that was still a couple of weeks. People gamble in the Stock Market by thinking they have a clearer crystal ball than the next guy or at least they recognize a potential before everyone else does.
Apparently my crystal ball is black and has three holes in it. Don't see much of the reality in it unless you are a pin.

You can never anticipate anything like this with any certainty, especially when it is a technology driven product. I don't recall seeing any or at least not many on KickStarter that met the production goals they set. I do recall that Skyfire experienced much the same thing that Glowforge is seeing now.

[usagi]

glowforge have a bunch of test units in the hands of beta testers right now...

https://community.glowforge.com/c/gl...oject-examples

[fixtureman1]

When you say a bunch is that 3 or 100 units

[ger21]

The bottom line is that they are promising delivery 2 years after orders were placed, and this date has already moved back several times.

[MichaelHenry]

Technically, they are promising delivery 1 year and 9 months after orders were first placed. Orders started in late September 2015 and delivery is now scheduled for the March-July 2016 time frame. The last I heard a week ago or so, they had 12 beta testers and now there are 3 pre-release testers. The beta testers have been posting their projects on the GF forum but are under NDA and not allowed to answer questions or take suggestions from users. The pre-release testers are apparently free to say what they like and the 1st one has been posting videos on YouTube. According to comments that GF has made on their forum, pre-release units are functionally identical from a hardware standpoint to commercial units, but some of the components may change in the production units, presumably to better quality versions.

One of the Tested guys (Norm) has a pre-release unit and seems to like it, but I'm not sure how detailed or thorough those guys get with their testing.

[Bigbird48]

ypu mean delivery now March *-July 2017 not 2016(chair)

[fixtureman1]

That is what Dan is saying March or July of 2017. He announced it just Dec 2 the month that it was to be shipped. There is a large discussion on their forum about that and there are a lot of very angry customers. They still don't have a fully working unit only a couple that does some of the stuff that they promised.

[Bigbird48]

GF will go belly up pretty soon as the buyers will want there money back, and if anyone ever gets one the bad reviews will kill the rest of them.
The price of this machine has gone way up. You can buy a way bigger more powerful machine from China and have it in house working in a couple weeks.People are so worried that these Chinese machines are hard to learn or require a lot of maint. Truth is after using mine for a while I could teach a 10 year old how to work it. Not saying I would just that its not that hard. yes you have to maintain it but you'll have to do that to a GF to and if they tell you different its BS. Just think if you bought an import 2 years ago how happy you'd be now instead of still waiting for something thats iffy and may never happen.:boxing::boxing:

[fixtureman1]

I just reread their terms of agreement and saw a lot of red flags. Like you lose all your rights to sue them if it doesn't work as they say. They can change the specs any time up to the ship date and some other iffy terms all benefiting Glowforge.

[MikeC8]

One of the things that swayed me towards buying a Chinese machine was parts availability long term. They have not changed the design of these machines much over the years, and they are fairly simple to modify/tweak to work with other parts as well. I can even upgrade the laser tube, with a wide selection of sizes and vendors. With the glowforge, you will have to buy parts from them. And if they release a gen 2, and 5 years down the road you need parts, will they still stock the parts you need? Or even worse, what if they close the doors? Where would you get parts then?

[Bigbird48]

Just like any company with the bucks they right the rules and its all in favor of them. So when a GF burns down your house because the thing didn't stop and cool down like its suppose to then you have no recourse, and your home owners insurance says to bad for you because your running a machine like that in your house. SZo your out your house and everything you ever worked for .Its gonna happen. GF targetrs Moms and Pops with how great this is that your 120 year old can run it. And when he does and walks off leaving it running and he will you know he will, wham the wood catches fire and wham there goes your house. I sit right buy my machine and if I have to leave it for any reason I hit the pause button. Never ever leave the machine un attended for any reason.

One of the things that swayed me towards buying a Chinese machine was parts availability long term. They have not changed the design of these machines much over the years, and they are fairly simple to modify/tweak to work with other parts as well. I can even upgrade the laser tube, with a wide selection of sizes and vendors. With the glowforge, you will have to buy parts from them. And if they release a gen 2, and 5 years down the road you need parts, will they still stock the parts you need? Or even worse, what if they close the doors? Where would you get parts then?

[MichaelHenry]

ypu mean delivery now March *-July 2017 not 2016(chair)

Duly noted (and thanks for the correction).

[ger21]

So when a GF burns down your house because the thing didn't stop and cool down like its suppose to then you have no recourse

We are in the US, where you can sue anyone for anything, regardless of what you may have signed or previously agreed to.

[Bigbird48]

Great! buy a GF and sue them after it burns your house down and everything you worked for all your life is gone.I'm sure that will give you great satisfaction while you sift through the ashes of you home(flame2):violin:

We are in the US, where you can sue anyone for anything, regardless of what you may have signed or previously agreed to.

[Bazzer]

Clearly a well styled product with sharp people behind it it, very much a product for the smartphone generation.

To be honest, the cheap Chinese laser cutters/engravers are so easy to use, if Corel laser had a decent English instruction manual then just about anyone would be able to use a K40.

What the Chinese are not clever at is getting local support networks in place, not sure if they understand that concept.

Just my two pence worth.

Barrie

[Bigbird48]

Why do you need corel laser just use corelderaw save as a DXF and import to laser and run easy pezee. and FWIT you can buy a decent Chinese Laser not junk k40 for less then the cost of a GF.

Clearly a well styled product with sharp people behind it it, very much a product for the smartphone generation.

To be honest, the cheap Chinese laser cutters/engravers are so easy to use, if Corel laser had a decent English instruction manual then just about anyone would be able to use a K40.

What the Chinese are not clever at is getting local support networks in place, not sure if they understand that concept.

Just my two pence worth.

Barrie

[Bazzer]

I don't know about easy pezee.

Well I find Corel Laser very esy to use, I do the CAD in an AutoCAD clone and pickup the DWG in Coreldraw and with the Corel Laser add on it is so easy to cut the parts.

Do you think that K40 has become a generic term to describe that style of 40W Chinese laser? mine is sold as as a K40D but it has 3 features over what I think of as the basic K40 specification.

1) Raise and lower on cutting table, so always hit the sweet spot on focal length.
2) Red dot alignment.
3) Air assist blowing.

I seem to be able to blast through the work no problems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVHL3ECXSeM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc5RdVRyvDM

[MichaelHenry]

Several pre-release Glowforge units have mad it out into pre-buyers hands lately and they've been posting some of their cuts and engravings. This example looked pretty good to me:

electron bloodclaat - I laser engraved Zenyatta. (amazing original...

Glowforge is still tweaking the software and apparently closing the gap between what "is" and what "was promised" but the pre-release test reports are pretty encouraging.

[godfrey]

Do you think that K40 has become a generic term to describe that style of 40W Chinese laser? mine is sold as as a K40D but it has 3 features over what I think of as the basic K40 specification.

I liken it to the small lathes and milling machines you'll find from Sieg, Harbor Freight, Grizzly, Little Machine Shop. They're roughly the same but some have better specs than others or just different parts.

I've completely dismantled my K40 and machined better parts, replaced the electronics with a AWC708C Plus, Gecko G201X drivers, better steppers, etc. Right now, the case is stripped of all of it's paint. In a few weeks it's going to the powder coater. Nothing gets in the way of progress in China...they paint over the rust.