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DreadLlama posted:Speaking of that: "The issue with contemporary lasers is that they require the operator to do a lot of things that have nothing to do with lasers." Probably because the laser isn't the point? It's a cnc power tool so the work and workflow is primarily cad poo poo, and the other end is boring cnc poo poo like airflow, exhaust, cooling, etc. The laser is just the actual cutting part and the fact it's a laser is almost incidental. I mean I get that there can be value in making it more accessible but at some point come on, there's only so much you can abstract away if you're intending people to be actually hands-on with the tool itself instead of sticking to Ponoko.
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Oct 1, 2015 18:09
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The glow forge is using accessibility as the means to excite customers into crowd funding their production run. There is legitimate value to that, and it's not a bad thing that someone might want to make lovely 3d scans on their phone and then 3d print them without having to learn about the technical concerns of the machine. The technology is exciting...not $2k exciting for me but I guess you gotta impress your friends somehow. Shying away from learning CAD/CAM basics is like not wanting to take a defensive driving course because your car has airbags. Fusion 360 is free and has free tutorials, and the only difficulties with Laser CAD are that its not obvious to use. The accessibility of a machine like that only lasts as long as you are willing to limit your projects within accessible constraints, which means it's no different than any other tool.
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Oct 1, 2015 21:55
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Let's say you were only interested in the project for the theoretical, "take jigsaw 1/4" plywoodcutting skills, apply to acetylene torch head for 1/4" steel-cutting" purposes. e: I do not know Autocad and I have other matters requiring my attention. DreadLlama fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Oct 2, 2015 |
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Oct 2, 2015 04:38
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Laser cad looks to be similar towards the learning curve I had with Mastercam. Things that seem like they should be simple to do require you to learn how to create it using the unintuitive system. But once you learn the layout and programing structure it is very very powerful and simplifies a lot of things that are hard or near impossible to do by hand without major errors. Once you know how the software works the hardest part is just figuring out where to start. I had 2 days to learn mastercam with no experience whatsoever and no one to help  If I can anyone can!
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Oct 2, 2015 07:50
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Ambihelical Hexnut posted:The glow forge is using accessibility as the means to excite customers into crowd funding their production run. There is legitimate value to that, and it's not a bad thing that someone might want to make lovely 3d scans on their phone and then 3d print them without having to learn about the technical concerns of the machine. The technology is exciting...not $2k exciting for me but I guess you gotta impress your friends somehow. I don't think the defensive driving analogy holds up. It's more like not wanting to take a rally driving course because you only intend to drive around town and commute to work. I've seen a lot of people online looking down their noses at the glow forge for being "babby's first laser", and the response is "fine, it's not for you". It reminds me of the EE guys who scoff at arduino users because it's not "real" embedded programming because it has an accessible IDE and tutorials. As an open-source-it hack-it-to-own-it technical user myself I can appreciate the limitations of the glow forge but we're still considering getting one for our makerspace, probably in support of a larger more capable machine. A good chunk of our community don't have the time or energy to invest on top of their existing projects / interests. They are happy to work within the limitations because they only have simple needs. Don't underestimate the value of accessibility. Thanks to user-experience-focussed design my 81 year old grandmother can use her iPhone 6 and face-time with her grandkids around the world with practically no assistance.
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Oct 2, 2015 13:20
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ReelBigLizard posted:I don't think the defensive driving analogy holds up. It's more like not wanting to take a rally driving course because you only intend to drive around town and commute to work. This is pretty much how I feel about it. Also I'd argue that even when you know what you're doing, sometimes it's nice just to sit down and get something done without having to spend hours doing it. Like, just because I can do a lot of things myself doesnt mean I always want to.
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Oct 2, 2015 15:42
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ReelBigLizard posted:I don't think the defensive driving analogy holds up. It's more like not wanting to take a rally driving course because you only intend to drive around town and commute to work. That is a good point that I do not disagree with. I am definitely not an open source hack it to own it guy, I do it but it's more of the annoying price of achieving what I want and not the goal. I hate every bit of maintenance a 3d printer takes. I was a bit snide with my remark perhaps, but really I wouldn't hate on anybody for owning/using a tool just because it's different than mine. What I meant by the defensive driving thing is that it doesn't matter how accessible this machine is, it's still a dangerous tool that's going to pour toxic smoke into some retard's kitchen or light itself on fire when they don't learn about the process. And there doesn't seem to be a lot of point to owning a CNC machine if you're unwilling/able to learn how to define how big a box or a circle is in software, which is all simple CAD is. So either their users will have to learn simple CAD techniques, be it in their own software or another, or they'll never make anything precise or repeatable.
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Oct 2, 2015 16:54
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quote:going to pour toxic smoke into some retard's kitchen or light itself on fire when they don't learn about the process I would assume the 4-5k price tag is going to deter complete idiots (and they've appeared to have made the air filtering process pretty easy)
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Oct 3, 2015 15:27
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I think I've mentioned it before, but laser projects have done wonders for increasing the amount of garbage I generate in a given week. I suppose it's the nature of one-offs to take several iterations of tweaking before they're totally right. The only thing I've produced a "lot" (50) of were those necklaces in the OP, and once it was set-up it was easy but lawwwdy did it take a lot of adjustments to get right in the first place. This is what my work area looks like at any given time: I haven't personally used it yet, but a lot of laser doods use the big green lego base plate (the grass under the house you built as a kid) combined with some lego blocks as an easily repositionable jig setup for engraving objects that are tough to hold down like clothes hangars. Today's project is (you guessed it) more rocket poo poo. I've been spending a lot of time getting a two stage rocket ready for a launch in a few weeks, and cramming avionics into the interstage coupler is the task I tackled today. Simple sled designed to fit inside of a 38mm tube designed in 2d as a Fusion 360 sketch:  Cut out of 1/4" poplar because that is the most aerodynamic of all the woods:  And here's where it goes. It'll house the booster's electronics: an altimeter to record data and fire the separation charge and deployment charges for the booster, and a cellular GPS tracker.  This avionics bay sits at the top of the booster, which is the lower section (from underneath the upper fins down to the floor):  Optimistically sims to 25k at over mach 2:  A Yolo Wizard posted:I would assume the 4-5k price tag is going to deter complete idiots (and they've appeared to have made the air filtering process pretty easy) I think it just gives you a fancier grade of idiot; I have done a lot of homework in this realm and there have still been like three times where I had to dump a soda or a beer into the work area because I accidentally used incorrect cut speed settings on a flammable material and didn't bother moving the fire extinguisher upstairs. What I was worried about was people cutting inappropriate materials like lexan or fiberglass which generate smoke that is much more toxic than the generally unhealthy smoke wood and acrylic make which is what those filters are probably designed to take care of. I should stop my snooty worrying, after all I have an unenclosed CNC mill on my dining room table who am I to judge anyone's safety standards. I do think the glowforge is in a primo position to be the first product to satisfactorily answer the "what speed and power setting should I use for X" question for a novice user; from what I've seen out of, for example, Epilog they only make a brief list of recommended settings.
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Oct 5, 2015 00:34
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I've ordered some plastic from McMaster-Carr a couple times and hey, they're great. In my most recent order I ordered 16 sheets and while flipping through them I saw two hosed up a little (about 1/4 of the protective film was pulled off / wrinkled badly on one, and scratched badly on another) and I was thinking "yeah, thanks for this  " but then counted I had 18 sheets total.In other words, the partly hosed up ones went into the box but didn't count. I Am Satisfied With My Care 
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Oct 5, 2015 18:47
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That's actually something that really interests me about the Glowforge. I've been reading up lately on fly-by-wire redundancy requirements and more recently, NASA's IFCS for purposes of flight droning. The subject of machine learning interests me. If a guy can get a robot to adjust both speed and power (something I never figured out myself for MIG welding) for a laser, on the fly, and then remember that setting for later use, I figure maybe also it's possible to teach a flight drone to lean into the wind constantly instead of bouncing between "Perfectly Level Flight" and OH poo poo GPS IS OFF TARGET BETTER VEER SHARPLY over and over again.
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Oct 6, 2015 01:00
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Sounds like you need to tune your PID loops bro
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Oct 6, 2015 01:42
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controller Holy gently caress. This exists now? Jesus. Do you have any idea what's possible with such technology? You could do away with the entire idle system on your carburetor. You could precisely control the flow of coolant in a reflux column. This has applications for both moonshining and the oil industry. Edit: If you could design a temperature sensor that outputs to software, you could regulate your BBQ to use less gas once you got water up to boiling. That would save a ton of propane for water purification. You could do something similar with a HVAC system to save on energy costs. I probably can't even think of all the things you could do with a PID controller. I mean, I had no idea that you could get a computer to control such things. I mean, I know the software is there, but I didn't know that sensors existed that a computer could read in order to know what to do. I thought you could only do that kind of stuff in minecraft. Let's say someone wanted to take a highschool basic 101 introductory course to PID controllers. Could you recommend any reading material? DreadLlama fucked around with this message at 03:03 on Oct 6, 2015 |
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Oct 6, 2015 03:00
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DreadLlama posted:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controller Is ... is this ... sarcasm?
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Oct 6, 2015 03:02
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I am from a place where highschool textbooks are from 1967. By the time I graduated from university, you could send an "E-mail" (in quotation marks) to your professor (but not in lieu of a written copy) if you wished to prove on-time submission. I am not up to date on the topic of how computers are able to interface with human concepts of physical space (beyond keyboard, mouse, monitor, gaming peripherals, and speakers). Did you know that someone stuck a zoom lens on a mouse and got it make a flight drone use it to maintain position more precisely than it could with gps alone? I didn't until about 3 months ago. Not sarcasm. Curiosity.
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Oct 6, 2015 03:13
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You also sound like a schizophrenic, dude  (Not an insult believe it or not. ) If you want to read up on PID just google PID Control and go from there. How you can hang out in the RC aircraft forum chatting about flight controllers and design of your own stuff and be floored by the existence of PID -- without which multirotors would literally not exist -- that's just 
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Oct 6, 2015 03:26
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DreadLlama posted:I am from a place where highschool textbooks are from 1967. By the time I graduated from university, you could send an "E-mail" (in quotation marks) to your professor (but not in lieu of a written copy) if you wished to prove on-time submission. Yeah, I have a couple "optical flow" sensors for my drones. Optical mice use high speed (but low resolution) camera sensors combined with a digital image processor to sense 2-dimensional movement fairly accurately (high speed specialized hardware can determine how far an image has shifted from the previous frame), They are intended to have lenses (usually a cheap molded polycarbonate piece), so using a bigger lens is fairly simple. As long as the surface has enough contrast (and you're not moving too fast) it will still be able to measure the translational movement. However, these things ended up being not-great for drones, because they are unable to handle rotational movement(rotational transforms are somewhat more complex, and dont go well with a low resolution sensor). Anyway, PID controllers have been around for like 100 years. The math is very simple, and originally they were used in mechanical systems, and then electromechanical systems, and then (analog) electronics, before modern digital PID control came about. Analog PID control is pretty cool IMO, since it involves the use of operational amplifiers (op-amps), which are a special type of amplifier than can be configured to perform various mathematical operations--addition/subtraction, integrating, differentiating and gain are all trivial, so if you can represent your sensor signal(s) and control signal(s) as voltages, you can make an analog PID controller that will function pretty much like a digital one. (Op-amps can also be used to build analog computers, which allow you to perform complicated math and solve differential equations and stuff, often by using logarithmic amplifiers to give you a mathematical shortcut to make doing stuff like multiplying 2 signals together easier. All you need to do is dial in your equation's constants as voltages, wire the computer up correctly for your equation, and then measure an output voltage to get the solution). Slanderer fucked around with this message at 03:43 on Oct 6, 2015 |
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Oct 6, 2015 03:41
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DreadLlama posted:I am from a place where highschool textbooks are from 1967. By the time I graduated from university, you could send an "E-mail" (in quotation marks) to your professor (but not in lieu of a written copy) if you wished to prove on-time submission. The wiki link is pretty good, and while it's not text, I like the following videos for a high level view. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UR0hOmjaHp0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfAt6hNV8XM
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Oct 6, 2015 05:41
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Tres Burritos posted:Is ... is this ... sarcasm? Dreadllama posts a whole lot of not sarcasm 
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Oct 6, 2015 05:54
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I only shitpost on facebook.
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Oct 6, 2015 06:08
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Is Glowforge a good entry point for baby's first laser? I am an engineer (CAD is my job), but I live in an apartment with limited hobby space and the built in air filter is incredibly appealing.
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Oct 8, 2015 04:31
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No. It's unproven, will have relatively poor support, and all of the extras are mostly gimmicks for non-technical people. Also the filtration claims they make are dubious. Look into getting an Epilog, they're barely more money and are fantastic in every way.
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Oct 8, 2015 04:51
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ante posted:No. It's unproven, will have relatively poor support, and all of the extras are mostly gimmicks for non-technical people. Also the filtration claims they make are dubious. The entry level model is nearly triple the price! They look fantastic, but that's quite a bit of money to shell out.
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Oct 8, 2015 05:00
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You have just completed the cycle of discovery that leads to owning a low rent Chinese laser like me. All are welcome!
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Oct 8, 2015 05:09
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Dirk the Average posted:The entry level model is nearly triple the price! They look fantastic, but that's quite a bit of money to shell out. I could have sworn I saw a link to a distributor selling the Epilog 40W for $4500. Maybe I was thinking Full Spectrum, which is also really solid. There's a TechShop-like outfit nearby that's been running them 24/7 for a couple years now, and keep buying more.
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Oct 8, 2015 05:22
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Ambihelical Hexnut posted:You have just completed the cycle of discovery that leads to owning a low rent Chinese laser like me. All are welcome! Hah, good point. Yeah, my big limiting factor is a lack of adequate ventilation combined with an unsuitable place to really put a laser cutter. I've got access to exactly one window that might work for venting fumes, but it's into the middle of an apartment complex, and people might be a tad upset when smelling burned acrylic while swimming (both windows also open horizontally and I'm on a ground floor, so actually venting anything is a tricky situation even if I pump fumes into a public space). The low price + air filter are the only things really attracting me to the glowforge, and if those don't live up to the advertising, then it's not exactly worth buying. I might have to put together one of these Chinese monstrosities instead. Is there a good way to build a ventilation setup? I can stick to cutting wood instead of acrylic to reduce any toxic fumes.
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Oct 8, 2015 05:23
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ante posted:I could have sworn I saw a link to a distributor selling the Epilog 40W for $4500. Ah, yeah, those are at a much better price point. I really don't need an industrial quality laser cutter at this time - Epilog looks like something I'd order at the company I work for if we needed a laser cutter for some major project.
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Oct 8, 2015 05:25
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Dirk the Average posted:Hah, good point. Yeah, my big limiting factor is a lack of adequate ventilation combined with an unsuitable place to really put a laser cutter. I've got access to exactly one window that might work for venting fumes, but it's into the middle of an apartment complex, and people might be a tad upset when smelling burned acrylic while swimming (both windows also open horizontally and I'm on a ground floor, so actually venting anything is a tricky situation even if I pump fumes into a public space). The low price + air filter are the only things really attracting me to the glowforge, and if those don't live up to the advertising, then it's not exactly worth buying. Couple things: Anyone claiming to be able to filter out acrylic with no odour without external ventilation is lying. Acrylic isn't toxic! It's quite unpleasant, though. Burning wood isn't really that much better, tbh. At my hackspace we were kicking around the idea of a water bubbler filtration. Like a bong. We ended up deciding not to do it because it sounded like a pain in the rear end to change water and dispose of it, and you won't get volunteers to do it, but that might be different if it's your own personal cutter.
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Oct 8, 2015 05:30
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It's hard to know if the glowforge's filter lives up to it's claims. It was released ~2 weeks ago. It's pretty much a complete unknown machine + some gimmicks + good marketing.
Aurium fucked around with this message at 05:34 on Oct 8, 2015 |
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Oct 8, 2015 05:31
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Yeah cutting wood will still totally stink, just in a different way.
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Oct 8, 2015 06:03
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So, while I don't even have a laser cutter, the whole idea of filtering exhaust has stuck in my mind today, so here are some of my musings. The water bubbler idea was mentioned, but I can't see a good way of easily pumping that high of a volume of air though enough water. You'd want a decently high column of water, too short and it wouldn't have much water to filter though. That though, would need a pretty good decent backing pressure. I'm not sure if even a good axial fan could produce the pressures. Though I'll admit that I don't really have any experience here. My noneducated guess makes me think you'd want some kind of positive displacement pump, but they're typically low volume. A roots blower might be interesting. I wonder how effective a electrostatic precipitator would be. They tend to work pretty well against smokes. The comedy option would be to make a box with a bunch of filters from painting face masks. They're optimized for high airflow, while still filtering both particulate matter and volatile compounds.
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Oct 9, 2015 04:35
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Nah I think the real comedy option would be to go full Biodome and use a poo poo ton of cigarette butts to make a filter.
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Oct 9, 2015 07:05
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Get a second, higher power laser tube and arrange a mirror grid around the exhaust port of the first one. The laser will vaporize the particles out of the exhaust of the first laser.
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Oct 9, 2015 14:35
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Ambihelical Hexnut posted:Get a second, higher power laser tube and arrange a mirror grid around the exhaust port of the first one. The laser will vaporize the particles out of the exhaust of the first laser. This is the only answer. I ended up drinking the kool aid for a glowforge, though; too many horror stories about the cheap Chinese lasers that I don't want to deal with. And I refuse to buy from full spectrum; our makerspace got one and they've been complete assholes when we just had a couple of questions. Epilog would be awesome but as the rest of you mentioned, price. Assuming it shows up sometime within twelve months, I'll come in here and let you know how much I regret giving them money. 
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Oct 9, 2015 19:38
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Why can't they just filter the exhaust through a bunch of activated charcoal granules?
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Oct 9, 2015 23:38
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dyne posted:Why can't they just filter the exhaust through a bunch of activated charcoal granules? At our hackerspace, this is exactly what we do. We bought a giant charcoal filter from a  Hydroponic Supply Store , and ran the laser through that. We still vent it outside for the smoke, but that allows us to vent directly over an outside sidewalk without complaints from the other tenants in the building. Works great, can't smell a thing, and the filter is still high-flow. We have to change out the charcoal every 3 months or so with heavy use. We have an airflow switch inline with the safety cut-off, so the laser won't fire unless there's sufficient airflow through the filter.We've actually got a smaller (40w, ~8x12) laser on a fancy official laser filter device, venting indoors. It's just a giant bed of charcoal, plus a HEPA filter. No odor, no smoke from that one at all.
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Oct 12, 2015 13:46
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I want to charcoal filter out the redirect ads I get when visiting the forums on ios. There are a few DIY guides for building your own charcoal filter for lasering, usually for a few hundred in materials. It doesn't look difficult, but for me I just decided to stick with the window exhaust since that works so well.
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Oct 12, 2015 14:04
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Ambihelical Hexnut posted:I want to charcoal filter out the redirect ads I get when visiting the forums on ios. Why aren't you using the Awful app? http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3510131
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Oct 12, 2015 15:49
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I used it years ago then it stopped working and I stopped paying attention, good to know it's back!
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Oct 12, 2015 16:04
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Zuph posted:At our hackerspace, this is exactly what we do. We bought a giant charcoal filter from a That's pretty cool. I just assumed that there would have been too much airflow around charcoal pieces for them to help enough to be worthwhile.
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Oct 12, 2015 19:37
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