Co2 cartridge for Basic Glowforge 40 w or 45 w

When I searched online for the right Co2 laser cartridge for my basic glowforge i noticed that there is only a 45 watt laser cartridge available to buy online on ebay.
I am not informed well enough to know if the 45 watt laser cartridge is able to be used with the basic glowforge as to the specs say that it only uses 40 w cartridge.
I just need to know whether or not my basic glowforge can use the 45 cartridge because I cant find a 40 watt laser cartridge to buy. Please help me be informed.

1 Like

Don’t get your hopes up about anyone knowing the answer to this. Officially, the laser tube is not at-home replaceable. GFwill not sell you a tube (they’ll replace it at their facility for $499), and nobody’s ever shared on these forums that they bought the eBay one and used it. There’s one written review on eBay, which says they bought it for a Pro, so they were swapping like for like.

4 Likes

while the laser tube is available, there is No Way to align the new tube - Glowforge does not offer any software. – if your tube is going, its well worth the $500 to have glowforge replace it.

3 Likes

Now a CO2 cartridge that will fill the machine with CO2 when detecting a fire could be a useful thing :grin:

4 Likes

Do those screws above the magical box that I can only imagine contain mirrors align the laser?

1 Like

Just think of the range of angle when the head is on the far right and the cone of angles that would be in the range of acceptable
:exploding_head:
I think that a total of a tenth of a degree would be outside the range.

1 Like

Looking at that assembly, there are two screws that hold the housing together, and two that go all the way through and secure it to the gantry. You can identify which are which by feeling under the gantry where the two mounting screws come through.
I’m going to speculate that the mirrors in the housing are aligned at exact angles when that subassembly is manufactured. There would be a very small amount of lateral movement allowed by the clearance for the mounting screws, and I have seen in pictures shims of a few thousands sticking out from underneath the housing adjusting the elevation of the mirror assembly. Those are the only areas of adjustment I have found.
Of course it may be that the mirrors need to be adjusted individually, but I’m guessing Dan’s founding partner who did the hardware design simplified that like other aspects of the machine.

3 Likes

More complex than I had figured. Anything that that exists that can detect if the beam is reaching the head? I am thinking of a hollywood style laser tripwire.

From what little I have seen of mirror alignment on other lasers involved sticky notes and pulsing the laser to see the alignment by the burn mark on the sticky note.

3 Likes

That was my thinking to test if it really was a misaligned laser window. Scroll a one mm line on the far right side with a high-speed min power flash on a bit of masking on the head but the smallest sticky note is a much better idea.

2 Likes

in order to align the laser you would likely need TARGETS. that would be fastened to here the mirrors go and the tub aligned to those targets. then the targets are removed and the mirrors put into place.

On my Cells sorter with 3 lasers. there are targets to make sure the beam is following the correct path. They are only used when mounting the lasers to the optical bench following a move of the unit (have done that 3 times, disassembly and reassembly is SOOO much fun!) The beams can be tweaked once set into place. but you have to start with the location pretty dang precise or the instrument is pretty useless if you are not getting good signals.

and with the glowforge if the beam path isn’t precise you will lose power.

3 Likes

I wish this was brought to attention when we first bought … or was I just caught up in full emotion to buy that no one wanted to ruin the sale

Wish what was brought to your attention? The fact that the laser tube is not user replaceable or something else?

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.