All 3 of my machines are DOWN time : 5:11 am Eastern

Community Support
1

After years of working with Glowforge, I feel compelled to address a recurring issue that continues to disrupt our workflow.

The machines randomly going offline — often at odd hours during the night — has become increasingly frequent. When this happens, the noise the Glowforge produces is extremely disruptive. The grinding and howling sounds when the system encounters an error are impossible to ignore, especially in the middle of the night.

What makes this even more frustrating is the lack of clear communication. A simple system-wide email notifying users of server or connectivity issues would resolve much of the confusion. Instead, users are left wondering whether the problem lies with their machine, their network, or Glowforge itself.

It is entirely possible for some machines to appear unaffected, given that Glowforge operates across multiple servers. However, when your specific machine loses connection, the experience is very real and very disruptive.

We have been using Glowforge machines for approximately seven years, and this issue has never truly been resolved — only tolerated.

Over time, we developed workarounds simply to maintain efficiency. One of those decisions was leaving our machines powered on 24/7. The centering process can be unnecessarily time-consuming, often requiring repeated adjustments using flashlights, shadows, restarts, material color changes, and multiple recalibrations.

Leaving the machines on became the most practical solution.

However, with three machines running continuously, the consequences of nighttime disconnects are significant. When a machine drops offline and attempts to reinitialize, the grinding and mechanical noise is loud enough to wake everyone in the house.

This happened again tonight.

Being forced to get up, shut down the machines, and then face the lengthy alignment process the following day is incredibly disruptive.

Why have we remained with Glowforge?

Primarily because, when paired with the external air filter, it has been one of the quieter systems available. Noise levels matter greatly in our working environment, and Glowforge offered a reasonable balance.

But with the number of alternatives now available — many offering local control, improved reliability, and more refined workflows — this ongoing instability is becoming increasingly difficult to justify.

Nothing creates stress quite like being woken up by the harsh grinding of a machine reacting to a connection failure.

Lately, this issue has been wearing thin.

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You have been doing this long enough to know that Glowforge staff doesn’t read this forum regularly, so why are you compelled? What’s your goal? Seems like you’re spinning your wheels here, we’re just Glowforge customers and have no power to help you even if we wanted to.

As you say there are other options that might fit your workflow better, maybe it’s time you moved on. No use throwing good money after bad, as they say. You wouldn’t be the first – there have been many prominent forum members who have left because the Glowforge didn’t meet their needs anymore.

6 Likes
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Well that might be what you think , but they would be complete idiots if they did not keep an eye on this forum , they might not respond to it , but I have gotten a few phone calls from them , the last one was about a year ago when i last posted, They know me , how many machines I run and when I tell them there is a problem, I do get some feed back. I also wrote them but I also give others some room to navigate the Glowforge at the same time.

Coal

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It’s not what I think, it’s stated fact. They do not monitor these channels regularly and haven’t for some time. You might get lucky and they might see it but you can’t count on that. You’re much better off reaching out to them directly via email or by calling them, which it sounds like you already did.

Posts like this are just you venting and there’s nothing we can do about it so it just brings negativity to the rest of our days.

Also, side note: venting doesn’t help the venter.

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I feel your Ranting as your post has zero content . ZERO , my post brought awareness and hot tips , and as stated i have made contact with support as well.
I wonder how many of those frustrated souls will start to leave there glowforge on 24/7 and get a a good flash light to help the camera when it blind as a bat. lol

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Do you have a carbon monoxide detector?

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My post has plenty of good content, I was helping you understand how to contact Glowforge and how to get real results because you didn’t seem to know.

The article was about ranting and how it’s both received and the recent research into what it actually accomplishes. There are better ways to spend your time that’s both more productive and more well-received by your audience.

Good luck with your machines, hopefully support will reach out to you soon.

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As you state, alternatives exist, and many people have chosen to move on from Glowforge. I really can’t imagine leaving three machines (and filters) running continuously. If your production needs are that great, and your time so valuable that you can’t tolerate the normal startup cycle, it really seems it is time to find a different machine. Many internet providers and services do their updates in the middle of the night so as to cause the least disruption. I appreciate that. If your machines are awakened from the sleep mode because of this it really isn’t something Glowforge will address. The choice has been made to maximize the performance for the greatest number of customers and minimize the down time. Your situation is not the norm.

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It’s actually impressive the pumps have been running that long.

One can turn them off and get updates when booting as normal like a normal person or deal with oddities if the chosen workflow is odd.

But yeah, showing up every 8-12 months just for a kibitz and a kvetch…starts looking like purposeful harassment of the community when the proper modes of communication are clearly already known for years.

2 Likes