My air filter that is less than a year old fas failed. The solution from Glowforge is a refurbished unit at over $500. I do not feel this is acceptable. I have now moved to venting outside. I do not a refurbished unit. I have already paid $1250 for a unit plus a filter. This is unacceptable to pay almost $2000 in a year for a filter.
Did it fail like it has completely stopped working (no power)? Or did it fail because it stopped removing the fumes from inside the machine. From what I have gathered from other posts, the filter cartridge is sensitive to non-approved glowforge material. This often creates an issue where the cartridge will become clogged or fail early and required a new cartridge. Mine failed in less than six months and we have been venting our fumes out a window since (for the last few months). We mostly just stare at our $1100 air filter now…no way I’m buying a new cartridge every six months at $250 a pop. Sorry this happened to you. We are also now dealing with a broken carriage wheel…so be cautious of that too. We spent almost 10K on a complete setup and the machine has failed us twice in less then 6 months.
Not just non-approved. Any material that has a sticky residue nature to it or doesn’t disintegrate cleanly in the laser blast will quickly fill any filter. MDF is specifically called out(so draftboard and the mdf cores and the like)(mostly due to the glues that hold the wood together then hold the wood dust I the front of the filter clogging it unnaturally fast) but some of the solid woods can also be just as bad. Saps are sticky, some woods are string and won’t vaporize cleanly. It’s really all about what gets vaporized.
Some have found putting the filter on higher to start helps draw some of the bad materials deeper into the filter material so it lasts longer but it then may not spend enough tim with the carbon to get the stink all out.
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Hi Kevin,
It stopped working as the power just dropped out.
Statistically, you’re better off with refurbished. New electronics fail at a much higher rate. Refurbished gets you past that peak in the failure curve. 
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I took a look at this, and the team is offering a refurbished unit because the wait for a repair is absurdly long right now (16 weeks). The refurbished unit has fewer hours on it than the unit being sent for repairs. It also comes with a new, unused cartridge as well.
If venting outside works for you, though, that’s a great solution!
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