by r691175002 » Thu Oct 13, 2011 11:09 pm
I have no idea and I still fall out of my chair everytime I see the project mentioned.
As far as I'm aware, the idea was conceived long after buildlog was already cutting, and is planned to be both more expensive and less capable. The thing hasn't even cut yet. A misguided project IMO but what can you do?
The kicker? Massive funding from kickstarter. If someone doesn't care enough about building a laser cutter to try typing it into google I doubt rational thinking will be given any weight.
<Rant>I actually hold a similar opinion on most 3d printers. Take a solved problem (cnc milling) and create a slow, imprecise and extremely expensive way of of making plastic parts. I never got why so many makers think 3d printing is the greatest thing since sliced bread. For the cost of most of the machines you can get a mill that will be infinitely more useful.
I'll admit that some of the newer machines are impressive, however you can't do serious work with extruded plastic regardless of surface finish.</Rant>
I think you are right about the press kit though, we should all do our part - Take some photos, talk about pricing and wrap it up into a few neat pages. I'm still convinced a competent maker can do the 2.x for under 1500$ and with some of the projects going on (maker-slide, open source controller) that number could go below 1000$ very quickly.
I'll look into dropping mine off at the local hacker-space for a few weeks. I think every place wants a laser and they would get addicted pretty fast.