Contributor
Worse than that, given that it appears their main business is vector-cutting, not raster.Originally Posted by Kev Williams
umm...
someone correct my math if I'm wrong...
as per raster speed running non-stop 24/7:
100" per second average raster speed = 393.7 mm per second--
...
We're missing 2 zero's methinks, or they gots some really really fast lasers! (or some other method of measuring beam travel)
They're using multiple Mazak lasers, type/power unknown but clearly industrial-grade.
Yoga class makes me feel like a total stud, mostly because I'm about as flexible as a 2x4.
"Design"? Possibly. "Intelligent"? Sure doesn't look like it from this angle.
We used to be hunter gatherers. Now we're shopper borrowers.
The three most important words in the English language: "Front Towards Enemy".
The world makes a lot more sense when you remember that Butthead was the smart one.
You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much ammo.
Member
I'm guessing they're keeping it simple because they're dealing with the public. Closing the paths would define what the part actually is and allow the software to automatically add lead-ins and lead-outs.Ah, got it. I suspect that, if whatever software they're using to drive their laser(s) is smart enough to detect open shapes, it's smart enough to eliminate overlapping lines.
I could be wrong.
I design, engineer and program all sorts of things.
Oh, and I use Adobe Illustrator with an Epilog Mini.
[OP]
Member
I can't even remember what I was searching for. The site seems to be still in beta, so I wasn't looking at their web design.
What I found fascinating about it the business side. I'm not sure I understand how far they are going to take this, but if you can create a one-stop shop where someone with an idea for a product can send you a PDF and basically you do everything else--from production to order fulfillment to web commerce site--and you just send them a check at the end of the day, seems like you could attract a fair number of creators to your site. Whether their ideas succeed or fail isn't really of import--if they succeed, you do a do of production. If they fail, it's some bits on a computer you are storing. But if it's on-demand manufacturing, you take the risk out for them, especially given the more typical model of having to fund a whole production run. Just seemed like a pretty interesting business model from a number of perspectives.
Contributor
Maybe I'm missing something, but I got the impression that they were just acting as a low-volume fab shop, sort of a very specialized industrial-grade Ponoko. I'm not seeing anything regarding order fulfillment, unless you're brave enough to have them drop-ship parts to your customer sight unseen.
Yoga class makes me feel like a total stud, mostly because I'm about as flexible as a 2x4.
"Design"? Possibly. "Intelligent"? Sure doesn't look like it from this angle.
We used to be hunter gatherers. Now we're shopper borrowers.
The three most important words in the English language: "Front Towards Enemy".
The world makes a lot more sense when you remember that Butthead was the smart one.
You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much ammo.
Member
Yes, this reminded me of Ponoko, which I think really influenced a lot people to get into digital fabrication.
Contributor
I can't post the link here (it's on another forum...google 'lasergist' and look for a hit that starts "Show HN"), but I saw a thread involving one of Lasergist's principals. Reading between the lines somewhat, I came away with the impression that it is sort of a side activity of a much larger operation, something to keep the machinery busy between large production runs.
Yoga class makes me feel like a total stud, mostly because I'm about as flexible as a 2x4.
"Design"? Possibly. "Intelligent"? Sure doesn't look like it from this angle.
We used to be hunter gatherers. Now we're shopper borrowers.
The three most important words in the English language: "Front Towards Enemy".
The world makes a lot more sense when you remember that Butthead was the smart one.
You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much ammo.
[OP]
Member
Isn't that how all the places like Cafe Press work for printing jobs--drop shipped to customer with pseudo-storefronts? This strikes me as being mainly decorative stuff, not process-critical machining, so I could see direct shipping appealing to some designers. But maybe I read too much into it. Even so, seems like if you could pull it off and crowdsource decorative design, you might have a market.
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