Latest Improvements

Veneer is now stunningly pre-finished

For those of you who’ve experienced Proofgrade materials, you probably noticed that our plywood and hardwoods had a beautiful semi-gloss finish applied at the factory. This premium water-based UV-cure finishing coat is applied by high-end industrial machinery. Unfortunately, it can’t be used on our veneer line, which is made of micro-thin flexible slices of real hardwood.

And that’s a shame, since some of our favorite projects are made from veneer - they’re particularly amazing for wrapping your laptop in real hardwood. The 3M peel-and-stick adhesive means they’re ready to use, right out of the laser. But applying finish to them used to be a real pain.

Well, we’ve finally found a process that can deliver that same amazing finish on our Proofgrade veneers. We’re delighted to be able to start selling the finished veneers in the store now (at a slightly higher price) - the unfinished veneers are just about gone.

Draftboard in the starter pack

As you probably know, every Glowforge comes with $150 of Proofgrade materials as a thank-you for the long wait. We’re shifting the pack contents around to include two sheets of Draftboard and upgrade the veneer from unfinshed to pre-finished.

We’re also adding a third sheet of Draftboard beyond the $150 worth of starter materials, at no extra charge. That sheet is for you to save in case our support team needs you to print on it for troubleshooting. We’ve seen some problems that can only be diagnosed by printing on Proofgrade material, so we want to make sure you have a piece of it if needed. Save this in case our support team asks you to use it for a test print.

International Referrals

Last week, we started sending out notices with each Glowforge where the buyer used a referral code: the referrer gets a $125.00 Glowforge gift certificate good for Proofgrade materials, designs from the Design Catalog, or even a new Glowforge unit! (They can also opt to receive $100 instead). This week, we’ve rolled out payments to our international referrers. So for our referring friends from overseas - thank you for your patience, and keep your eyes peeled for those referral payout emails.

Catalog and Shop: open to the people you invite

No longer will you have to share your precious Proofgrade materials or watch your friends gaze longingly at your chock-full-of-designs Dashboard. Now you when you invite friends to use your Glowforge, they will also have access to the Glowforge Materials Shop AND Glowforge Design Catalog. (Note that you must have access to a Glowforge, either as an owner or as a guest, to use the catalog and shop).

By popular demand: the Glowforge Design Catalog has officially launched! Starting today, every Glowforge owner will be able to browse (and buy) a variety of tried-and-true premium designs, created just for Glowforge printers. Look for the Catalog link on the new top navigation bar when you’re signed into the Glowforge app.

We’re launching with a range of designs from quick to sophisticated - whip up a batch of dominoes for game night, a personalized wine caddy for your friend’s housewarming party, or a handsome leather wallet or clutch that no one will believe you made yourself.

Excited to build that picture frame or wallet/clutch, but worried about assembling it? Each design in the design catalog has instructions so you can follow step by step instructions on exactly how to build your personalized product. Simply find the instruction button on your workspace, and the workspace drawer will open to reveal step by step instructions.

Of course, our amazing designers will continue to add products of all shapes and sizes, so check back frequently to see new things you can make.

Get Ready for Referral Payments

If you’re one of the thousands of Glowforge customers who shared your referral code, I have some terrific news.

You already know that if someone uses your referral code they get a $100 discount and you get $100. Well, we’re making that better.

Starting this week for US customers (and soon for international customers), every time we ship a Glowforge unit to its forever home, the person who referred that buyer will get their reward. They can opt for the $100 they signed up for, of course. But some of you had a better idea, and we decided to do it.

A $125.00 gift certificate.

That’s right: if you refer someone to buy a Glowforge unit, you can upgrade your reward to a $125.00 gift certificate good for anything Glowforge sells. Proofgrade materials, Catalog designs… even a second Glowforge unit! Just watch your inbox - when their unit ships, you’ll get an email asking you which you’d prefer, the $100 payment or the $125 gift certificate.

Finally, more good news: you can still achieve referrals! You can check on the status of your referrals or grab your link to share by clicking the Referral link on the top navigation bar in the app. Include your link when you post photos of your best Glowforge projects on the web. All your friends who are green with laser-envy can take advantage of the discount, and you’ll rack up even more referral dollars. Win-win!

Thank you, as always, for supporting us - we can’t wait to get everyone their Glowforge!

Fewer print errors

We’re making some fixes to our infrastructure that should reduce or eliminate the errors you might get when you try to upload and/or print large, complex designs. Just more examples of how your feedback is invaluable to help us find and improve our software for everyone.

Just one notable change this week: we heard that many of you have tons of designs in your dashboard and wish you had more space to see them all. So, we reoriented the dashboard UI to give you more room to do what you do best: print beautiful things. Of course, we also have assorted bug fixes and improvements.

Paste Instead of Upload

Inkscape users, rejoice! You never need to save your files again. (Note: while technically true this is not actually recommended). Instead of saving SVGs and uploading them, you can simply copy your design with the copy command, go to app.glowforge.com, and hit paste. Boom! Ready to print.

Editing images? No problem. Copy-pasting JPGs and PNGs works too.

Adobe Illustrator? Well… it works in AI 2015, but we’re still working on later versions.

There one catch, though: you'll need to paste into the file upload page, not the workspace that shows the bed image.

Speaking of not being able to add things to the workspace...

Now you can add things to the workspace

You asked for it, and here it is, fresh from the hopper: You can add all supported file types to the workspace with the “Add Artwork” button.

What’s this mean for you? Previously, if you wanted to dress up a design by adding some more files to the print, you were stuck - you could add an engraving, but not more SVG or PDF files. Now, you can load up multiple designs and lay them out on one sheet of material, or throw a cutline onto a trace.

To add your files, you can either drag and drop them directly into the workspace, or click “Add Artwork” and then “Upload.” We’ll work on adding copy-paste to this, too.

Extended Characters support (✿◠‿◠)

Your Glowforge naming options have grown exponentially with the addition of extended characters! This will let our international customers name their Glowforge however they see fit...and give our US customers some amusing options (up to 15 characters). How will you ever decide?!

Farewell, hot stop

We recently rolled out a series of improvements to prepare for the wild summer heat wave we’ve seen sweeping the nation. Instead of cancelling your print, your Glowforge can pause and fan itself in a civilized manner until it’s ready to continue. You told us that was a big improvement - but you helped us find a bug, too! Your Glowforge would sometimes prevent you from printing when it was warm. Problem solved. You can always start your Glowforge printing, and if it’s too warm, it’ll just pause during the print to chill as needed to get the job done. Of course, for the fastest and best results in environments that are consistently over 72F/22C, we recommend the advanced cooling found in the Glowforge Pro.

Not a “fan” of mystery faults? Us, either.

It’s important to keep your Glowforge ventilation system in tip-top shape. Your Glowforge will always stop if it detects a problem, but we heard from you that it would be easier to troubleshoot if we could be a little more specific. Starting now, if your Glowforge detects a ventilation-related problem, you’ll see a message letting you know and telling you if the problem is in your intake (right side), exhaust (left rear), or air assist (under the head). Mystery solved!

Your Glowforge (and all the superpowers it gives you) is probably something you want to share. With your friends, family, neighbors, or someone you met at the hardware store and bonded with over ceramic tile. But your Glowforge account is also private and for just YOU to use.

So imagine, if you will:

• Your friend from across the country heard about your Glowforge arrival, is just as stoked as you are, and wants to print something without the cost of a plane ticket.
• You want to share your Glowforge with your family, but you remember what happened when you shared your Amazon account with them....
• Your friend is thinking about buying a new Glowforge and just wants to check it out when they come over for dinner next week.

We’ve got you covered: there’s a brand new “Add user” button on the top right of app.glowforge.com. Click it and you’ll find a page where you can invite people to use your Glowforge - simply type in their email address, send the invite, and your friend will get an email. Lots of friends? You can enter a list of emails, separated by commas, of all the people who now owe you favors.

Your friend, once invited, will have access to a page where they can set up their account and pick their username. When they push the “create account” button, they’ll be taken to the dashboard with ten designs to get them started (including the luggage tag and puzzle you might have seen at Maker Faire).

They’ll have their own Glowforge account that’s not tied to your credit card and won’t mix up your print history with their print history. They can post questions to the forum so they don’t have to bug you about the latest 3D engraving developments. And soon (but not quite yet) they'll be able to visit shop.glowforge.com to buy you some thank-you Proofgrade materials, and the forthcoming Design Catalog to print you something awesome as a token of their affection.

Sounds like a good excuse to have a party.

This part is really important: only give access to people you trust. Of course, to actually start a print, someone has to push that big glowing button. But, please be aware that anyone you invite to use your Glowforge will have “Full Access” to it, meaning they can:

• View the materials in the bed of your Glowforge, anytime
• See when a print is active on your Glowforge, and who sent the print
• Cancel ongoing prints
• See who else has access to use the printer, and add and remove other users

See a list of people who can use your Glowforge

Speaking of adding or removing users, the new Glowforge Printers page (found under Settings) will show you a list of all the printers you have access to (your own, and any printers that other people have given you access to).

From the Users settings tab, you can also invite and remove others from any the printers you have access to.

You can also see who the “Owner” is - this is the account that was used to first set up your Glowforge. Other users can’t remove the “Owner” from accessing it.

New Settings page (Don’t miss the chance to pick your own username!)

When you’re logged into the Glowforge app, click your name to see the printer(s) you have access to, and a link to your settings page. Here’s the fun part: now you can pick out your own username for the software (note: not linked to the community forum). Choose wisely.

First time getting started?

When your Glowforge arrives, we know your number one priority is to start printing beautiful things ASAP. New Owners will now have access to a carefully constructed, step-by-step guide to get their Glowforge named and ready to print in no time flat.

On Time

The print timer just got even more accurate. We’ve made some improvements to help it check in with your Glowforge more often to give you the most accurate time estimate.

Itty bitty UI fixes

Thanks for the great feedback on the cut/engrave settings! We’ve swapped the order of power and speed on the workspace steps to match what you see in the Manual Tab itself. We also fixed our spelling mistake (sorry, Steinberg!). Please keep sharing your feedback on the forum!

Troubleshooting

Stuck? There's a link at the top of the Glowforge App for Support. Click it to find troubleshooters for everything from Wi-Fi setup to upload problems, with more to come.

We’ve been collecting tons of feedback from you about the performance of the Glowforge Basic under warm weather conditions. As we investigated, we found a problem that was preventing prints from starting in warm rooms; this update fixes the problem. Since there is a firmware component, it won’t take effect until after your machine is switched off and on again.

We’ve also made a small but neat improvement to the lights: you’ll see them change as you open and close the lid. This helps optimize camera performance and means you won’t be blinded when you open the lid. And we think it looks pretty good, too!

We’ve also made assorted bug fixes, including a significant one that will reduce errors when your network connection is intermittent.

We’re finishing the rollout of Precision & Full Power that we announced last month.

We engineered Precision Power to help unlock never-before-seen engraving abilities on materials like wood, acrylic, and even delicate paper. Different settings allow for different shades, giving you power to create intricate and richly detailed engraves right at your fingertips.

Full Power, on the other hand, is just like it sounds; it uses maximum power on the material, which is useful for cuts and scores. Pro users have even more power at their disposal, meaning that full power on Pro will cut through materials, including Proofgrade, at an accelerated speed.

The combination allows your Glowforge to print beautifully on a tremendous array of materials, from carving through thick hardwoods to delicately engraving a single sheet of notebook paper.

Materials come from a huge variety of sources, so we made this easy with Proofgrade settings. When you use Proofgrade material, we automatically pick the right combination of speed and precision or full power to use with your material. Starting today, though, we have a new manual interface to access these if you are using materials from third party sources and need to develop proper settings yourself.

First, you have the choice of Full power, which uses the maximum power available to your Pro or Basic Glowforge. This gives you about 20% more power on the Pro than the Basic, so Pro operations at Full power can run about 20% faster.

Second, you have the choice of Precision power. Precision power is the same between Basic and Pro. This gives you extremely detailed control over the level of power produced by the laser, which allows you to dial in incredibly fine details and print on exceptionally delicate materials.

Third, we’re cleaning up our measurements. Cutting speeds can now range from 100-500, and engraving speeds can range from 100-1000. If you have old settings to convert, make a copy of this spreadsheet and it will do it for you. Power settings are unchanged.

(The team is also rolling out dozens of software tests to accelerate factory production - this is the only change we’re making that is user-affecting!)

Fixed Those Printing Problems You Told Us About

We collected a bunch of visual problems you’ve reported - long times overflowing the window, flickering images - and they’re going out today. Thanks for letting us know about any and all problems you find!

New Proofgrade Hardwoods, Acrylic Colors -- and Thick Plywood

There are three gorgeous and practical new Proofgrade Hardwoods available now:

• Pale, creamy white Basswood, used for centuries by mask makers and puppeteers, is the lightest hardwood and perfect for your most intricate engraves
  
• Yellow and green toned Poplar, treasured for its flexible nature, is especially porous and paintable
• Rosy Red Oak, which almost appears to glow, boasts unique cathedral-like figuring that adds natural elegance to any project

Basswood

Poplar

Red Oak

Our acrylic collection now includes custom-cast colors like our signature “Glowforge Teal”, a deep royal Purple, and radiant Fluorescent Blue, Fluorescent Green, and Fluorescent Pink for projects that need an extra boost of vibrant color.

Five New Acrylic Colors: Purple, Fluorescent Green, Fluorescent Pink, Fluorescent Blue, and that iconic Glowforge Teal.

For your heavy-duty project, we’re excited to offer a new “Thick” variety of Proofgrade Plywoods in Maple, Cherry, and Walnut, which measure about ¼” in thickness.

Like all Proofgrade plywoods, the Thick line is made with a custom-engineered fibreboard core sandwiched by natural hardwood veneer, resulting in a beautiful and versatile material that you’ll use every day. Each piece of Proofgrade plywood is masked to give perfect prints, finished with a semi-gloss coating for an an ideal finish, and includes a barcode that takes care of settings automatically.

Better Proofgrade Detection

Some of you let us know that your Proofgrade materials weren’t being detected by your Glowforge. Thank you! We’ve rolled out a fix based on your feedback that will more reliably read material barcodes.

New Firmware Release

And now announcing… very little. The next time your Glowforge powers up, the firmware on you system will be quietly updated to the latest version. You probably won’t notice (our firmware updates have always been silent and uneventful) but there are some bug fixes that should make things go more smoothly.

Cooling

In the past, if your Glowforge got too warm, it would abort and potentially ruin your print. Now, it will just cool off for a bit and continue. The head will stop moving, but everything else will be the same. Coming soon: the UI will update to let you know this is happening, and we’ll lower the temperature limit to improve your performance. (In the interim, printing when it’s over 72 degrees or so may result in the laser not cutting through consistently - right now it only pauses when the temperatures are critical).