@dan You mention particulate is what clogs the filter when using draft board, how large is the particulate? I know in my dust collection for my wood working tools I’ve got a cyclone separator in front of my shop vac that drops the large particulate and they claim 95% of the dust. Would one of these make any improvement to filter life? It makes a huge difference when doing resawing cuts on my band saw which produces endless piles of very fine sawdust.
This one is designed for sawdust, so it’s probably not a good fit for the size particulate laser cutters make, but a difference sized one could be optimized for the different particulate. A tighter cyclone would spin faster giving a higher force to throw the particulate out. Multiple smaller cyclones might be needed for proper airflow, look at any modern bagless vacuum cleaners, like dyson.
I guess it all matters though on how large the particulate is. Do you have any measurements on particulate size?
Well sure. And I’m also sure that engraving versus cutting will produce different sizes. I just know that cyclones can be good to about 5 microns when properly sized. I just didn’t know if laser particulate is around that size or smaller.
A very big difference between sawdust and laser smoke is not about the size of the particles but the fact that sawdust is not soaked in glue. the smoke is covered in the liquid crud of evaporated wood tar that will stick to anything, so I would expect that a cyclone would build up pretty quickly. However even a pretty open pre-filter would benefit from the issue that would be bad for the cyclone as particles that could bounce their way through would stick at the first bounce.
There have been a number of alternatives discussed
I have the BlueDri and the biggest issue is connecting the 4" hose to the 10" opening (12" outside) the Pullman would need a much larger square connection and is more expensive. The extra volume of air might be lost in making the connection.
Hi does anyone know if we can “clean” the filter? I work at a school and its lasted all year, with very heavy usage. However im in the middle of a project and all of a sudden smoke everywhere. Where can I buy a replacement? This is urgent.
Replacement filters are sold in the Shop, in the Spare Parts category. (You might want to keep a spare on hand, no idea how long shipping takes on the replacement cartridges.)
Any news on this? It’s been literally years. The Glowforge is useless in my day-to-day workflow without the filter, and I can’t spare the space for the external unit.
Ugh…just looked at my estimated shipping date…and surprise surprise, it’s moved out two months from the last time I looked…about two months ago. I guess the ship date is just always going to be 4 months away.
I wish there were at least regular announcements from the team about the status, what’s really going on in the development, what’s working and what isn’t. This interminable waiting with next to zero information is frustrating.
I actually found the idea (and practice) of the compact filter to be preferable. Having to lift the entire GF to change the filter just seems silly. The only thing missing is the auto control by the GF - But all that means is I turn on the filter manually which is super easy to do.
I get that and I’m still waiting as well. To me, it seems like the compact filter is a better solution for some situations and the yet to be delivered glowforge filter is better for other situations.
I could be way off base here but if it were me I would seriously consider the other options. Obviously after this much time has passed I have to conclude that the original plan for a filter has not panned out as expected. It’s not like the company would have the perfect filter hanging out in a storage facility or not building them to piss off their customers.
is just sitting waiting for the filter.
