It’s a fast connection with a very strong signal… and still the app.glowforge.com status shows “needs calibr”(ation)… more than 20 minutes on at this point.
Sure, on and idle I’d have no problem leaving it unattended. But calibration isn’t idle (I want eyes on it anytime there’s a chance the head could be moving or there may be laser tube activity), and I am particularly wary of leaving it alone when either the machine or the software that controls it is not functioning properly.
So, how do I fix it when the brand new unit is not calibrating properly?
Others will suggest steps. But I will ask a question. Is the app actually receiving a status? I have seen the app hang in various ways. You could leave in running and start the app on another computer to see if it says the same thing.
It is difficult if not impossible to really say. The way the webapp (not app as in standalone piece of software) has been designed is such that it doesn’t appear to do any live updating of any kind of info, things only actually change if you refresh the page (for example, delete an uploaded image… it sits there showing as an ‘undo’ option and does not disappear until you refresh the page - regardless of how much time passes).
That said, if the status says “NEEDS CALIBR” then there does not appear to be an update of any kind. Eventually I shut it off and then turned it back on, that time it showed a status of “calibrating” for only a few moments.
It appears to do a quick calibration step after almost everything, and unfortunately it does occasionally hang up. I’m on my second such calibration hangup in an hour’s worth of use. It’s difficult to say whether this is merely a software glitch, or if there is a problem with the laser. Having to power down and reset on an hourly (or more frequent) basis because calibration is failing is a serious problem, and will prevent me from being able to work on more elaborate or detailed projects. Especially since the pro features are currently hobbled (using the pass-through door does not appear to be possible and there does not appear to be any precision alignment tools that would make re-positioning materials that moved (or sessions that had to be resumed after a power-down) possible.
Unknown. You will need to start a new Problems and Support ticket since Support only works on one per topic. Calibration should only occur one time per power up except under rare conditions. Firmware update, power spikes, unknown conditions that might cause a loss of Cal, etc…
I avoid doing it now, and wait until it has gotten to the “preparing your design” step to cancel.
(most often because I have brought new elements into the UI using the add artwork button, and forget to set the original elements to ignore)
I am not sure it will be fixed. If they send stepper motor drive waveforms from the cloud and play them blindly to the hardware then if you cancel during any motion it won’t know how to gracefully stop as that would require knowledge of the current speed and the acceleration profile.
So if it just cuts short the drive waveform the motor may run on or stop dead depending on how slow it is moving at the time. That uncertainty would mean that even if it keeps track of steps it will not know its position accurately, so it would need to home again.
I filed a ticket on that yesterday evening, as well as a ticket for the issues with the laser bed camera inaccuracies. I have yet to receive anything other than the acknowledgement email, but hopefully both will turn out to be easily remedied with software updates.
