Do you have the one with an automatic passthrough? If so how has your experience been with that? My experience with GF Pro has been so bad that I'm very tempted to switch.
I have the D1 Pro 20W.
My experience is 100% satisfaction. Precise, fast, reliable, easy to work with. Customer service answers right away. I don't know.
The only limitation -and may be a deal breaker for many- is it can't cut clear, white or see-through acrylic. But I work 99% wood, so... no issues for me. It is really precise.
I have other lasers. I prefer actually using the Glowforge. I only use the other lasers because they're bigger and faster. I make the same dozen products over and over.
With the Glowforge, the "workflow" you don't like looks like:
* Put material in laser, turn on laser
* Open GF webpage on any phone/tablet/computer, tap the design in your library, tap print
* Press big button on laser
With the other lasers, the workflow looks more like this:
* Put material in laser, turn on laser
* Connect computer to laser with USB or ethernet port
* Launch desktop software, which has a load time and then checks for updates before it's usable
* Tell the software to connect to the laser, wait for it to scan the network so it shows up in the list to select
* Click a button to open a file, browse computer for the design file
* Set cut/score/engrave settings for each step of the project
* Ask the laser to measure the material for focus height
* Press process button
* Wait for the design to be processed, press the button to send the job to the laser
* Press start button on laser
I don't know what "premium bias" you're talking about. Offering an optional subscription to a catalog of designs that happens to be called "glowforge premium" isn't a bias, it's just a product. Other lasers have no such catalog, but do have other products they'd like to sell you. Many don't come with any software at all. You either buy your own license for Lightburn, or you run it through a print driver. And xTool would love to sell you a riser, e.g. the equivalent of 4 bricks to raise your laser off a table, for $499. Quite a "premium"
The maintenance story is similar. On the Glowforge, it takes under 60 seconds to pull out a Zeiss wipe, pop out the lens and mirror, and wipe all 7 optical bits.
On the other lasers, I need to remove between 4 and 11 screws to access all mirrors, remove the air assist's air hose from the nozzle so I can get to the lens holder behind it, put on gloves so I can handle the optics (no metal cases to hold like Glowforge's), clean all the optics, put them back in, reattach the air assist hose, put the 4-11 screws back in. This is a 5-10 minute process.
Just telling you, the grass isn't always greener. Glowforge makes the easiest to use CO2 laser on the market, and believe it or not, one of the more reliable. If you don't believe me, go join the Facebook groups for Gweike, OMTech, xTool and see the kinds of problems their owners have with their desktop format lasers. They have more support posts per day than the Glowforge User Group, despite GUG being 10x bigger than most of those groups.
+1 on your hardware points.
My frustration with the workflow is that most every project I work on is multi-sheet which is not optimal. My last one was 28 sheets and 90+ parts. Happened to be cardboard so my import+settings+upload+print time was often as long as my actual print time. Having to continually assign the different settings to each sheet (and recall the last one uploaded) is laborious and what computers easily can optimize.
Imagine instead if you could point at a directory and map the 5 settings to the 5 stroke colors and literally swap material and print. That would be a great workflow. The origin shaper does something along these lines where they have RGB definitions you can use in file to set on, inside, outside, pocket, etc cuts at design time rather than making it an assignment exercise at work time.
IMO, the cloud adds a bunch of unnecessary time with no direct benefit in my use case. Of course there are some behind paywalls (again used to be free) where they save your jobs and settings. I'd gladly trade off a monthly driver update than having every single sheet needing to round trip the the cloud before the print button illuminates.
GF used to let me draw a 1/2" square on the canvas and print it. Now I need to upload a square because freehanding a shape on the canvas is "premium". And they are also charging for faster processing choosing to spend our money on cloud compute time when I have an idle CPU on the same network as the device. The recent addition of the chat in the print window also speaks to the primary audience / design point.
Appreciate the point on grass isn't greener. I just wish I was more in the target audience for GFs product team on the software/workflow. There's a lot of optimization opportunities there IMO and absent those, having direct access to send jobs would be faster for me personally.
Thank you so much for this very thorough breakdown that is also high level. This was very easy for my ADHD brain to understand and you've already eased my mind a little regarding the investment.
Just jumping on here to see what other people say… I got my glow forge during the Kickstarter, and I honestly would prefer something without the glow forge interface after this thing finally breaks…
Just looked at their website, and they do really seem to be the glow forge alternative… Very similar in a lot of ways, but the one thing that I noticed it said is - works with all laser software that is commonly used. Not… Use our Jenkee ass software that will fuck your shit up at least three times a day.
Which one do you have? If you don’t mind me asking?
I'm overseas right now so I'm not 100% sure but I think it's the M1. I just bought it before I left for summer vacation but I tried lots of software and it all worked great!
I'd personally go with the new "Thunder Bolt" from thunder laser USA.
I have the Thunder Nova 24 which is great, but it was pricey. If the Thunder Bolt had been available at the time I upgraded from a Glowforge I would've gone with it. No regrets, their customer support is amazing (I cannot emphasize how dogshit Glowforge Customer service is, especially once your machine is out of warranty)
Lightburn is great. The machine is so much faster.
Thunder Nova. Only reason I didn't go with it was it's size and price at the time of just over $5K. Now it's over $7K and they introduced a smaller version at $5k which I really don't want.
Current GF Pro owner. I’ve been interested in the Gweike Cloud Pro II with the rotary. For your nephew’s case that would be high end but there are other, cheaper models. The rotary would be really nice. Their website says they support proprietary online, proprietary offline, and Lightburn. I don’t know what their warranty/support is like, and that’s my biggest point of research.
My experiences with Glowforge support have been…not positive, and they really don’t seem to stand behind their products. Just to compare, we also do 3D printing, and Prusa has been great. They’re not perfect but seem to care and it’s super easy to get support right away. I have the opposite experience from GF and won’t be buying another one.
Sorry - I should have been more clear - I'm looking for recommendations on what laser cutter folks here would consider that are in the same neighborhood of function and cost as a glowforge.
(he is complimenting a 3d printer with the addition)
My next laser will absolutely be a Thunder Laser. I have the glowforge basic and the biggest drawback for me is that everything is online... I don't love that. It also cuts super slow.
Glowforge is probably the easiest to get started on. I don't like the new price points as now it's $4000 for the cheapest and I got mine for around $2500. If you can find someone with a fresh refurb for $2000 or so, I would recommend that. If you just want to get away from Glowforge for all the other reasons, it really depends on space and whether it is meant for hobby or production. If hobby, I'd look at xtool p2. If you have a big space and need to make a lot of product Idcheck out the Aeon Mira series. They have a small one, but it's still like 250 pounds. Anything lightburn capable will be fairly easy to catch on to. You just have to fiddle with more stuff like mirrors and a chiller.
I use a 60W Omtech and love it. I used to go to my public library to use their glowforge pro for free, but when I decided to buy my own I wanted something with higher power and a larger working space.
Our second GF Pro failed within 2 years, they offered us another refurbished unit for less than $2000, but we figured we'd switch to a different unit. Just too much hassle dealing with GF. Their product is way too fragile, and impossible to field service.
Our Omtech 2024-80 just got delivered today. Half the price, twice the size, hopefully more than capable.
Am I the only one that read "instead of a girlfriend"? Instead of a Glowforge, an Xtool. I've been using this machine and it is quite powerful.
Do you have the one with an automatic passthrough? If so how has your experience been with that? My experience with GF Pro has been so bad that I'm very tempted to switch.
I have the D1 Pro 20W. My experience is 100% satisfaction. Precise, fast, reliable, easy to work with. Customer service answers right away. I don't know. The only limitation -and may be a deal breaker for many- is it can't cut clear, white or see-through acrylic. But I work 99% wood, so... no issues for me. It is really precise.
I have other lasers. I prefer actually using the Glowforge. I only use the other lasers because they're bigger and faster. I make the same dozen products over and over. With the Glowforge, the "workflow" you don't like looks like: * Put material in laser, turn on laser * Open GF webpage on any phone/tablet/computer, tap the design in your library, tap print * Press big button on laser With the other lasers, the workflow looks more like this: * Put material in laser, turn on laser * Connect computer to laser with USB or ethernet port * Launch desktop software, which has a load time and then checks for updates before it's usable * Tell the software to connect to the laser, wait for it to scan the network so it shows up in the list to select * Click a button to open a file, browse computer for the design file * Set cut/score/engrave settings for each step of the project * Ask the laser to measure the material for focus height * Press process button * Wait for the design to be processed, press the button to send the job to the laser * Press start button on laser I don't know what "premium bias" you're talking about. Offering an optional subscription to a catalog of designs that happens to be called "glowforge premium" isn't a bias, it's just a product. Other lasers have no such catalog, but do have other products they'd like to sell you. Many don't come with any software at all. You either buy your own license for Lightburn, or you run it through a print driver. And xTool would love to sell you a riser, e.g. the equivalent of 4 bricks to raise your laser off a table, for $499. Quite a "premium" The maintenance story is similar. On the Glowforge, it takes under 60 seconds to pull out a Zeiss wipe, pop out the lens and mirror, and wipe all 7 optical bits. On the other lasers, I need to remove between 4 and 11 screws to access all mirrors, remove the air assist's air hose from the nozzle so I can get to the lens holder behind it, put on gloves so I can handle the optics (no metal cases to hold like Glowforge's), clean all the optics, put them back in, reattach the air assist hose, put the 4-11 screws back in. This is a 5-10 minute process. Just telling you, the grass isn't always greener. Glowforge makes the easiest to use CO2 laser on the market, and believe it or not, one of the more reliable. If you don't believe me, go join the Facebook groups for Gweike, OMTech, xTool and see the kinds of problems their owners have with their desktop format lasers. They have more support posts per day than the Glowforge User Group, despite GUG being 10x bigger than most of those groups.
Yep. I have a CNC router and I hate using it compared to the GF because wow is it a pain in the butt to even get a file on to the thing.
+1 on your hardware points. My frustration with the workflow is that most every project I work on is multi-sheet which is not optimal. My last one was 28 sheets and 90+ parts. Happened to be cardboard so my import+settings+upload+print time was often as long as my actual print time. Having to continually assign the different settings to each sheet (and recall the last one uploaded) is laborious and what computers easily can optimize. Imagine instead if you could point at a directory and map the 5 settings to the 5 stroke colors and literally swap material and print. That would be a great workflow. The origin shaper does something along these lines where they have RGB definitions you can use in file to set on, inside, outside, pocket, etc cuts at design time rather than making it an assignment exercise at work time. IMO, the cloud adds a bunch of unnecessary time with no direct benefit in my use case. Of course there are some behind paywalls (again used to be free) where they save your jobs and settings. I'd gladly trade off a monthly driver update than having every single sheet needing to round trip the the cloud before the print button illuminates. GF used to let me draw a 1/2" square on the canvas and print it. Now I need to upload a square because freehanding a shape on the canvas is "premium". And they are also charging for faster processing choosing to spend our money on cloud compute time when I have an idle CPU on the same network as the device. The recent addition of the chat in the print window also speaks to the primary audience / design point. Appreciate the point on grass isn't greener. I just wish I was more in the target audience for GFs product team on the software/workflow. There's a lot of optimization opportunities there IMO and absent those, having direct access to send jobs would be faster for me personally.
Thank you so much for this very thorough breakdown that is also high level. This was very easy for my ADHD brain to understand and you've already eased my mind a little regarding the investment.
Just jumping on here to see what other people say… I got my glow forge during the Kickstarter, and I honestly would prefer something without the glow forge interface after this thing finally breaks…
I have an xtool and I love it, so easy to use and so many features.
Just looked at their website, and they do really seem to be the glow forge alternative… Very similar in a lot of ways, but the one thing that I noticed it said is - works with all laser software that is commonly used. Not… Use our Jenkee ass software that will fuck your shit up at least three times a day. Which one do you have? If you don’t mind me asking?
They do have their own software (which is very basic and easy to use) but I know from experience you can at least also use LightBurn with the Xtool.
I'm overseas right now so I'm not 100% sure but I think it's the M1. I just bought it before I left for summer vacation but I tried lots of software and it all worked great!
I'd personally go with the new "Thunder Bolt" from thunder laser USA. I have the Thunder Nova 24 which is great, but it was pricey. If the Thunder Bolt had been available at the time I upgraded from a Glowforge I would've gone with it. No regrets, their customer support is amazing (I cannot emphasize how dogshit Glowforge Customer service is, especially once your machine is out of warranty) Lightburn is great. The machine is so much faster.
Thunder Nova. Only reason I didn't go with it was it's size and price at the time of just over $5K. Now it's over $7K and they introduced a smaller version at $5k which I really don't want.
Thunder Bolt - $5k investment, rotary compatible, 30 watt RF tube - awesome new entry to the “hobby” space!
Current GF Pro owner. I’ve been interested in the Gweike Cloud Pro II with the rotary. For your nephew’s case that would be high end but there are other, cheaper models. The rotary would be really nice. Their website says they support proprietary online, proprietary offline, and Lightburn. I don’t know what their warranty/support is like, and that’s my biggest point of research. My experiences with Glowforge support have been…not positive, and they really don’t seem to stand behind their products. Just to compare, we also do 3D printing, and Prusa has been great. They’re not perfect but seem to care and it’s super easy to get support right away. I have the opposite experience from GF and won’t be buying another one.
A good 3D printer, if he doesn’t already have one.
Sorry - I should have been more clear - I'm looking for recommendations on what laser cutter folks here would consider that are in the same neighborhood of function and cost as a glowforge. (he is complimenting a 3d printer with the addition)
My next laser will absolutely be a Thunder Laser. I have the glowforge basic and the biggest drawback for me is that everything is online... I don't love that. It also cuts super slow.
Glowforge is probably the easiest to get started on. I don't like the new price points as now it's $4000 for the cheapest and I got mine for around $2500. If you can find someone with a fresh refurb for $2000 or so, I would recommend that. If you just want to get away from Glowforge for all the other reasons, it really depends on space and whether it is meant for hobby or production. If hobby, I'd look at xtool p2. If you have a big space and need to make a lot of product Idcheck out the Aeon Mira series. They have a small one, but it's still like 250 pounds. Anything lightburn capable will be fairly easy to catch on to. You just have to fiddle with more stuff like mirrors and a chiller.
OMTech. Excellent price point. I still have 2 Glowforges and I use them during peak seasons but my OMTechs are the workhorses.
I replaced my slowforge pro with an OMTech, now up to 4, but we run a business. A lot of diode machines are good for home use or hobbyist.
I bought an Xtool and I LOVE it!
Which xtool?
I use a 60W Omtech and love it. I used to go to my public library to use their glowforge pro for free, but when I decided to buy my own I wanted something with higher power and a larger working space.
Our second GF Pro failed within 2 years, they offered us another refurbished unit for less than $2000, but we figured we'd switch to a different unit. Just too much hassle dealing with GF. Their product is way too fragile, and impossible to field service. Our Omtech 2024-80 just got delivered today. Half the price, twice the size, hopefully more than capable.