After the succes of resetting routers and modems yesterday I powered on the machine and again no movement. I’m not sure which is more frustrating, the fact that the glowforge only works sometimes or that no explanations are given by support for the errors.
To summarize:
- June 30th, I sent my first email to support. I tried powercycling, moving the head manually and turning it on. The machine had been working great before this. I changed nothing, I moved nothing I just operated it like usual.
- June 30th, I receive a reply from support. They extracted logs, looks like wifi’s acting up. Support suggests I reset modems and routers, devices that communicate with the glowforge and of course the machine itself. Also they ask me to extract some logs from my machine too straight through wifi pairing. After doing so I snoop around in those logs to see what I can figure out myself.
Logs look like this:
2018-06-30_21:00:59.75509 59680 DEBUG: mhs_laser: setting to 0
2018-06-30_21:00:59.75509 59681 INFO: camera_peripheral: Waiting for image…
2018-06-30_21:01:01.31053 61242 ERROR: hw: Coolant flow failure (broken pump) (src/hw_task_messages.cpp:112)
2018-06-30_21:01:01.32391 61247 INFO: hw: error flag set: fault:coolant_flow_fault:set (45)
2018-06-30_21:01:01.32396 61252 INFO: coolant_flow_controller_peripheral: Entering pump state 1
2018-06-30_21:01:01.32398 61252 INFO: coolant_flow_controller_peripheral: Pump on
2018-06-30_21:01:03.25816 63189 ERROR: camera_peripheral: failed to receive image after 3507 ms. (11: Resource temporarily unavailable, src/cam_manager.cpp:286)
2018-06-30_21:01:03.27140 63197 DEBUG: white_led: setting to 0
2018-06-30_21:01:03.27144 63199 DEBUG: uv_led: setting to 0
2018-06-30_21:01:03.27145 63201 DEBUG: mhs_laser: setting to 0
The only errors I could find accounted to either the coolant pump or the lid camera not responding. I looked over the pump area and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Checked all the connections and I did the same for the lid camera connections. All the ribboncables I could find. Checked their connections and tried again. The machine came to life! Awesome. Did a test cut, everything worked fine. Turned off the machine to go do something else and I returned later to find the machine stuck in calibration again.
On juli 2nd I sent a followup email to support because I had not gotten a reply yet and to tell them what had happend in the meantime. (Got it to work, finish a job, stuck in calibration again, got it to work, did a test, stuck in calibration again)
Later that day I received an email from support that they were going to push an update (I guess firmware) to my machine that should resolve everything. I was disappointed that there was no info on the errors in the mail but excited that I could work my machine again. After the update (lid open, reboot etc) The machine booted like normal and I was able to go through another testjob. Everything was awesome again. Except I still didn’t understand what is going on with my machine. I want to know what error it was/is that keeps it stuck in calibration. So I shot another mail at support asking for an explanation
juli 3rd I powered on the machine in the morning to rush a job through that needed to be sent out of the country, but nothing again. Calibration, calibration, calibration… nothing. Of course I was mad and I tried all the tricks I had learned again. Powercycling, manually moving the head, resetting all devices, check all the cables. I even downloaded new logs but since nobody cared to explain to me what to look for in the logs I could only find the same errors (Lid camera and coolant pump). I emailed support again.
juli 4th, 5 hours ago I received my last email. Pretty much the most American email I’ve ever gotten not really including any relevant info on the problem and the dreaded:
"Unfortunately, we’ve found that your unit has a problem that we can’t solve remotely. While it’s possible that this could get better, it’s unlikely to be resolved without replacing the unit. I don’t want you to find yourself polishing off an important print and having this issue arise at the last minute, so I recommend that we make a warranty replacement. "
Now I’m glad the company will replace my machine with a new one and ship it both ways accross the globe under warranty. But I’m very disappointed that nobody at support has made any effort to explain the root of my problem. Is it software or hardware? Is it something I can try to avoid in the future? Is it a known bug? I’m guessing I’ll never be informed as to what happend and with that it takes away a little of the joy of owning a glowforge. As the question arises every time I turn it on. Will it calibrate?