I had an original GF unit that I used for about 5 months initially that got replaced, so I’ve been using a newer unit for about 4 months now.
The problem I’m running into is the smell. My older unit didn’t seem to stink up the house nearly as bad. The old unit only stank up the place a little when I had cuts sitting out or I had the lid opened for a bit.
This newer unit has had a stink problem from day 1. I’ve been using the AC Infinity fan with the internal fan off on both units. I first thought I must’ve not had a tight connection on a duct somewhere when I got the newer unit, so I re-did it all.
Long story short and hundreds of dollars thrown at it, I’m still stinking up the room its in to where it feels difficult to breathe in there about mid way cutting my second board of the day. It gets so bad that I got a respirator to use in my house after I’m cutting for a few hours.
I’ve tried different duct pipes, more aluminum tape, different duct attachments, Rockler ($$$) accessory suggestions, moved to a different room to exhaust out a different area, trying to tape up different intakes on the GF, etc.) I also keep it as clean as I can. I noticed that helps when nothing is being cut and the lid is opened.
I thought it might be blowing back into the house somehow since it currently exhausts into a covered porch area, so I’ve added extra stripping to everything. I also added a big fan out there to just continuously blow fumes outward.
I even made a setup to where the AC infinity external fan sits outside just to completely eliminate it as the leaky culprit.
After all that, I believe it’s leaking from the Glowforge itself somewhere. I suspect it’s a very tiny leak since it only seems to build up the smell after maybe 30-45 min of cutting.
Any suggestions?