Bad blurry camera on several trys

Turned MewPew on today and got this - yes I cleaned the crumbtray, camera lens, print head lens, and the left hand side window thingie…all lenses cleaned with Zeiss wipes. Tried multiple proofgrades, then tried a plain old piece of plywood. I noticed that when cleaning the lens it felt loose. Figured I had noting to lose at this point, went back, turned/refreshed/turned/refreshed until I got final image. I thought the camera lens was fixed. I have not “gorilla” turned it, just gently wiped it and it gets THAT loose and out of focus???


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Wow! That final image is really sharp. My GF image
has always been a little blurry but my lid lens is not loose so have not tried to force turn it.

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Yes, we are not supposed to turn them! I have no idea how mine became so loose!! Believe me, I am not THAT strong!

  1. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Glowforge image that clear before. As such, I have to wonder if that’s a problem. (I’m not joking.)

  2. You’re correct, the lens is supposed to be fixed. I didn’t think one could turn it (easily). So that’s a concern. I wonder if it’s too loose? Will normal use cause it to defocus?

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I just did a cut and it was beautiful! Scared the begeezes out of me though…I had one hand ready to open the lid to abort

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I think the lens focus is meant to be set at the factory and glued, but it may have come loose or not been applied correctly.

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I think I will take a paint pen and mark the lens housing and the lid to have a registration reference.

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So after the cut, without raising the lid, it does show a bit off. I can live with that. At this point I am more mad at myself that I didn’t straighten out my first cut piece to better utilize my material than anything else. (Cutting new acrylic pieces for the Twister pinball machine)

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The PRU lid cameras were not glued. The lens will not only affects the image clarity but even the slightest adjustment will throw the alignment off. And the relationship between in-focus and perfect alignment does not seem obvious. I would caution others against trying to adjust the lens because they are now glued. I marked my lens ring position with nail polish should I accidentally rotate it.

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I agree. Good idea to mark it out of the box in case something should happen - wish I had done that. I turned mine out of desperation only since it seemed to either work itself out of focus or my cleaning turned it without me noticing. I think I just got lucky. Going to go get a paint pen right now…

May want to wait for Support to confirm it’s in the right position before you mark it. Just because it’s correct at the current depth doesn’t mean it’s overall correct. :slight_smile:

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Thanks for letting us know about this and for providing the pictures. Unfortunately, we’ll need to replace your Glowforge.

I’ve followed up with more information by email, so I’m going to close this thread.