Close Call

[Bert Kemp]

No Jason not at all true. I know the dangers of fire with a laser ,as you don't, and I supervise my self by watching as it cuts and I avoided a fire because I watch. Also my machine is entirely in a metal box except for the cover so even if I hadn't been right there it would take a long time to get the house going. I all so have a fire extinguisher if it had gone beyond what a spray bottle could handle. I'm never more then a couple of feet away when cutting.
Now if your Plastic glowforge goes up in flames the whole maCHINE WILL BE FUEL for the fire and besides a big fire that's hard to put out you have all those toxic fumes and black smoke from the plastic,that will make it hard to see and get out of the room so you and anyone else in the house will probably die from toxic smoke inhalation .
Do you think all the moms and pops that are buying these things sight unseen will have all the safety equipment such as a spray bottle and fire extinguisher sitting by the kitchen table and they will of course train their 10 year old on proper use of such equipment and tell him he has to stand there for 45 min's and watch and not leave it alone while it cuts out his train parts, while mom and pop drink beer in the other room watching TV. I DON'T THINK SO!!
gOOD LUCK jASON pLEASE DON'T BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN

[Mike Clarke]

So while you're over in the glowforge thread raving about how every GF purchaser is inevitably going to burn their house down you... Nearly burned your house down.

Jason,
That is a funny statement. It is very much an overstatment, but funny. No offense to you or Bert intended by me.

I did have a customer bring up the glow forge today. I gave him a link to the GF thread. Honestly I didn't read that much of the GF thread. I don't think I posted in it either. Any way it is not something that threatens me as you can see.

What I have heard from a few fireman recently is new homes burn faster than older homes. About 4 times faster according to an article I just saw. So whether it is Bert or a GF user if it gets out of hand it can be bad. I have found corrugated cardboard to be bad about wanting to catch fire in a laser.

[Keith Winter]

Wow glad you caught it! Thanks for posting.

[Keith Winter]

I wish it was in the budget for a bigger air compressor.

Bert I have one of those fish pump air compressors, right under a hundred bucks. Works really well for the price if you need something inexpensive.

[Bert Kemp]

Keith I think thats what I have tho I'm not really sure, it came with my wait for it..............fsl don't have any idea what it puts out for psi do you have a model # or send me a pm with a link for what U have. Thanx
wow big blank space whats up here



















































QUOTE=Keith Winter;2487773]Bert I have one of those fish pump air compressors, right under a hundred bucks. Works really well for the price if you need something inexpensive.[/QUOTE]

[John Bion]

Hi Bert, Stern reminder to us all, thanks.

I recently cooked two lenses due to one of our cats climbing into the warm compressor box (Plywood housing around the external compressor) and stepping on - thereby switching off - my compressor and I did not notice for quite a while due to the reservoir of my compressor gradually depleting. By the time I realised, the MDF smoke had cooked the lenses, but no fire fortunately!

Regarding getting a bigger compressor: Keep an eye on auctions of industrial/farming equipment and second hand sales from these. I picked up my compressor second hand for a song, I could hardly believe what I paid as I fork-lifted the beast into place. This compressor now runs my lasers, spray painting, sand-blaster and other pneumatic tools with ease.
One other point, if you have a 3 Phase Electricity supply, you can often pick up 3 Phase equipment cheaper second hand because there is less competition for it than for single phase equipment, those looking for 3 phase equipment generally buy new and those looking for second hand generally do not have 3 phase supply This applies in the UK and I assume it to be true your side of the pond too.

Kind Regards, John

[Dan Hintz]

So while you're over in the glowforge thread raving about how every GF purchaser is inevitably going to burn their house down you... Nearly burned your house down.

Sure. And this just shows that even an experienced user can have a fire.

Now remove the experience and increase the sample base by 10,000 units. Things don't look as user-friendly anymore.

[Mike Troncalli]

FOR SALE:

Slightly used Glowforge laser. Some scorching and burn marks around the edge.. Comes with free matching scorched table top..

:-)

[Chris DeGerolamo]

I am unfortunately part of the "been there, done that" crowd. Lesson learned the hard way.

Let me tell ya', this stuff burned like some self-oxidizing napalm mess...it melted into the grid and pooched it.

[Bill George]

I have a squirt water bottle for the little could be fires and I purchased a CO2 fire extinguisher than hangs on a hook right next to the machine. BUT you need to be there. Bert I have a air line branched off my big shop compressor and a regulator set at 10 psi. I just turn on a valve when using the air assist. Compressor rarely comes on.

[Matt McCoy]

...I know the dangers of fire with a laser...I supervise my self by watching as it cuts and I avoided a fire because I watch.

Did you have this knowledge before you owned a laser and became familiar with how to safely operate it?

Good to see that you caught it quickly.

[Bert Kemp]

No Matt I didn't and I burnt up my first laser so bad that I pretty much had to rebuild it. But again the laser was an all METAL box NOT PLASTIC like the glowforge and the fire was contained in that box. I got a second chance. When a Glowforge catches fire there won't be many second chances once that plastic ignites a spray bottle will be useless. I think these things should be sold with a FIRE Blanket as standard equipment. Just look in this forum and see how many of us have had fires. Its a FACT laser start fires its the nature of the beast and if your settings are off, your speed to slow, power to high, chances are your gonna have a fire and if your not paying attention it could be bad.

Did you have this knowledge before you owned a laser and became familiar with how to safely operate it?

Good to see that you caught it quickly.

[Jason Hilton]

Everyone started with no experience. And every laser manufacturer has safety requirements in their documentation that just as many users might ignore. Based on the conversations on the GF site many of the buyers have some laser experience already. And based on the conversations here over the last year, just as many buyers of other brands and Chinese lasers are new to laser engraving. My point is that while Bert is raving about the dangers of a Glowforge and derogatory to GF and future GF owners he's had a fire, and on a non-GF machine. You can't create separate categories for people if the qualifications for those categories are exactly the same.

Sure. And this just shows that even an experienced user can have a fire.

Now remove the experience and increase the sample base by 10,000 units. Things don't look as user-friendly anymore.

[Matt McCoy]

No Matt I didn't and I burnt up my first laser so bad that I pretty much had to rebuild it. But again the laser was an all METAL box NOT PLASTIC like the glowforge and the fire was contained in that box. I got a second chance. When a Glowforge catches fire there won't be many second chances once that plastic ignites a spray bottle will be useless. I think these things should be sold with a FIRE Blanket as standard equipment. Just look in this forum and see how many of us have had fires. Its a FACT laser start fires its the nature of the beast and if your settings are off, your speed to slow, power to high, chances are your gonna have a fire and if your not paying attention it could be bad.

Well, I think you can see where I was going there. Safety can be taught, and you should learn how to swim if you or your children are going to responsibly play around in water.

We don't know the flammability of the plastic used for the housing on the GF yet, so we have to wait to see if it will be similar to plastics used in cars, planes, construction, etc. that have fire-retarding properties. Although, here's what has been passed along so far:

"the design was created from plastic that softens rather than ignites, and as you probably saw, the lid is a very solid piece of glass. It's designed to fail in a way that does not spread any fire. We've also added a number of safety systems to avoid all the major causes of fires we've seen in laser postmortems. For example, we won't leave the head blowing air on the ember left from a cut - we shut off the air when the cut is done, unlike most systems. As another example, we can detect the collisions that are usually the start of a problem with our onboard accelerometers.

This isn't something I'd let a child use unattended, but I worry about it less than, say, my blender when they're around."


I sincerely hope you don't have a third strike.

[Mark Taylor2]

I'm glad you weren't hurt and no damage done, Bert. Thanks for posting this and the reminder that these things can do the unexpected.