Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is an updated review since Glowforge® has decided to sell through Amazon now. Most of the information in the original review remains the same, only now there are even MORE reasons to buy the machine. (IMHO.) Brief summary of my experience with the machines....I purchased a Glowforge during the preorder campaign, and was privileged to test one of the Basic pre-release units. I received my own Pro model about 7 months ago. By now I have been using one of these for almost a year and a half. (Time flies when you're having a blast!) ;) There are now 3 models of the Glowforge Laser available: The Basic unit at 40 watts is more than powerful enough for hobby work in a craft room environment if you want to get your feet wet. The optional filter will enable you to run the machine without having to vent it out a window, although those are not yet available at the time this review is being written. (They are due in a few months, barring unforeseen delay.) Limitations to the Basic unit are a narrower operating temperature range - they tend to pause for cooling at temperatures above 76° F, so a moderate ambient temperature is necessary for longer jobs....in other words, they work better in an air-conditioned craft room than a hot garage. :) The Plus model is the same as the Basic with the addition of a boost of power that speeds up processing and lets you cut through thicker materials. (45 watts). The Plus model has the same power levels as the Pro model, without the Passthrough slot. The Pro model has 45 watts of power, a wider operating temperature range (60°F - 81°F), and it has a Passthrough slot that lets you cut 1/4" thick material that is 20" wide and as long as you like. (Word art for the walls, larger boxes, finished pieces. Totally cool stuff that I'm still exploring.) Reasons you Might Want to Consider Buying a Glowforge Laser: 1. It is simple to use, even if you have never touched a laser before. When I started testing the pre-release unit the only lasers I had ever seen in operation were on YouTube videos. I made my first cut within half an hour of starting to set up the machine. It is literally as easy as connect the vent hose (or optional filter), attach the print head, plug in the machine, and load an app. The instructions for setup are clear and easy to follow. There are a ton of tutorials on the Glowforge.com community forum. In addition, if you are new to lasers, there is now a group of friendly enthusiastic customers on the Glowforge forum who have gotten familiar with laser operation and are available to assist people in getting the machine set up and helping folks to get started with their machines. It's a good time to buy. 2. You don’t have to be a technical genius to use this machine. Everything is enclosed in the main unit, or the unit plus filter. (There are no external cooling pumps and water buckets and compressors, and whatever the heck all those other things are on cheap lasers. Don’t know…don’t care. This one unit comes ready to operate with everything internal, and I have mine set up in my office. Attach a vent hose, plug it in, and it’s ready to go. These machines do need to be vented or used with a filter, like all lasers.) 3. You can make some fantastically cool things with it. I’ve attached a few updated pictures of things that I’ve made and done with the machine, to show the print quality that you can achieve with this laser. And just because it is easy for beginners to use, doesn’t mean that it can’t do a lot of what the big boys do for small projects and light business use. 4. Build quality of the machine is excellent. The Glowforge team has incorporated sensors into the print head that warn if the user sticks in something that is too high, or if the door isn’t quite closed, and it shuts down the print or refuses to process it. (In other words, it takes out a lot of the usual user error potential.) I have been doing my best to break this thing for almost a year and a half, and I’ve pulled a LOT of boneheaded beginner errors…. so far it’s survived just fine. (grin) In addition, Glowforge has been excellent about providing Warranty replacement units for machines damaged in transit or manufacture. It's real life, it does happen sometimes, but they make it right. 5. The Glowforge team will offer Proofgrade™ materials to use in the cutter, and those materials will make getting excellent results for neophytes even easier. The Proofgrade materials are coded with a lot of the more advanced information like setting the focal point for the beam, and power and speed settings for that material. So a new user doesn’t have to know as much to get started. Advanced users can over-ride these settings manually as well, if they wish to use other materials not sold by Glowforge. Easy, easy, easy. (I routinely set my own, so you are NOT limited to using Proofgrade materials. They’re just easier, and they come with a nice satin finish that cuts down on a lot of post-processing work. Huge time savers, and they really are much more trouble-free than other over the counter materials. But there have been successful engraves and/or cuts on fabrics, leather, rubber, silicone, EVA craft foam, papers, cardboards, acrylics and etching on stone, slate, glass, etc., etc. A very popular item at the moment on the forum is cheap ceramic tiles from Home Depot and Lowes. They are turning them into gorgeous coasters with Sharpies by simply coloring in the engraved areas...the excess ink just wipes off of the unengraved areas.) 6. If you are a hand-drawn style artist (draw with ink on paper), this is an excellent machine for you. The Glowforge User Interface has a Trace function that will scan your artwork and quickly turn it into a very high quality engrave-able image, which you can transfer onto wood or acrylic, or a ceramic tile. The interface will also give you the option to create a cut line around your artwork, so you can engrave your own art onto wood and then cut it out for display, or to hand out as wooden business cards/postcards/whatnot. And if you don't want to design your own, you can easily modify the offerings from the catalog by simply dragging and dropping your artwork onto the boxes and leather goods that they have designed for you. 7. If you are a digital designer familiar with digital design programs (2D, 3D etc.) ...those types of designs can also be loaded into the interface for cutting and engraving. (The Glowforge interface is not a complete digital design suite though, most of the processing on digital files is performed on the file before loading it into the interface.) Plenty of instructions on getting started with digital design in the forum too, for those interested. Some Reasons you Might Want to Consider Something Else: 1. You can get cheaper lasers. They will likely require a much higher learning curve and you could experience significantly more down time. Some of them will be infected with malware. They will probably require that you change out parts frequently, so being comfortable with taking a machine apart and fixing things on it is a must. They will also take up more space because parts of the units are external. But if price is the sole consideration, you can get a laser that will do the same things that this one does. Just not as easily. 2. The cutting area on the bed on this laser is currently limited to about 19.50 inches by 11 inches or so, unless you get a Pro Model unit, which will have a Passthrough slot that will allow you to feed in ¼” tall material for processing. Those will have a limitation of 20 inches wide by any length. (Some larger materials will need to be cut down to fit in the bed of the Basic and Plus units. If you cut them to 20" x 12" they will fit in the bed.) 3. This is a closed system, and there is a limitation on the height of the materials that can be engraved in it. That limitation is about 2 inches tall – there is no way to fit anything taller into the machine. So if you need to engrave taller objects, buy a different laser. 4. There is no rotary device associated with this machine currently. One of the forum users has devised a manually-rotated device that allows for cylindrical engraving. (We figure one will be coming in a future upgrade, or made available as an add-on later.) 5. You need an internet connection to use this machine. This has not been an issue for me, but if you are uncomfortable with using the Google Cloud to send your file designs to Glowforge for processing, then buy something else. In 16 months, I’ve had one file fail to finish due to a power line surge, which I’m pretty sure would shut the process down on any laser. They use the internet to load the file up to Glowforge for processing, and then to download the results to the machine. The file sizes are relatively small, and once the results are downloaded to the machine, the print will continue until it finishes, so actual interaction with the Cloud is fairly brief. And it works fine. (And I have a VERY slow internet connection. If you have a connection that allows streaming, it's boatloads faster than you need for this.) 6. This was not something I was aware of at the time of the original review of the Basic unit, but this machine is considerably slower to process large batch files than the $35,000 lasers. So if you are wanting to use it for large batch commercial processing, you might be better off getting a faster laser for the job. Overall, it’s an incredibly well built tool. I’ve been able to cut and engrave everything from wood, plywood, bamboo, acrylic, leather, foam core, fabric, paper, cardboard, and MDF to eggshells, and I’ve even engraved a phrase on a grain of rice. It’s that accurate. The results have been unbelievably accurate, no matter how detailed the designs have been. And one other thing that really impresses me about this....it keeps getting better. It's WONDERFUL to find a company that's willing to work with the customers to improve the product. Good luck making your choice! I'm still thrilled to death with this one, and they keep improving the software and adding new functionality making it easier to use as time goes on. :)