I’m up in Canada, and my plan had been to use the glow forge in an unheated garage, only turning on some souce of heat when I’m using the forge. Is this type of storage/use going to be problematic? If so, would heating the space to 5c all the time then 15c during use be enough?
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Not sure if they have published operating conditions yet. I hope the coolant will not freeze easily…especially with winter deliveries… (worst we have had a few years back was -14F…bet you guys get it colder regularly)
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We know the winter is getting cold when the spare 12-packs of soda in the garage start exploding. I guess that’s probably not the place for my gf. (Also probably not the woodshop – ignition source plus pounds of flammable dust…)
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I would also be concerned other then coolant with thermal shock its cold and you fire it up and crack the glass or cause flash condensation on electronic components. When we receive things on truck to our data center the things climatize for a week before we put power to then
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Wonder how many people are going to get their new GF in January, bring it inside and fire it right up without waiting even a day or two before blast-off? 
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I have a feeling that just got added (if not there already) to the quick start guide with large exclamation points. 
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In all seriousness, with middle of winter delivery, I do hope there will be some guidelines.
Part of the qualification testing should be some cold/hot storage as well as thermal cycling testing to simulate such cases (storage/shipping/start up from extreme temps)…
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I will check, but I expect the definitive word will come with the manual.
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Thanks for stopping in Dan, would be nice to know somewhat ahead of time to work on resolving my heating/storage issues I assume others have as well.
Is any temperature above 0 enough to prevent the flash condensation? My plans as of now is possibly to maintain around 5 C and then warm it up prior to use.
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Condensation depends on temp and humidity. The problem is that warmer air can hold more moisture – until it gets near a cool thing and gets cooled down, at which point the cool thing is covered with liquid. What you want to do, ideally, is to make sure that your GF is warmer than anything else in the room if there’s a chance of condensation. How you do that is sometimes a conundrum.
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With the caveat, “it always depends”, I’d expect the GF to be fairly quick to equilibrate to inside conditions. It is large, but it is mostly air. Opening that large glass top a couple of times should do a good job of cycling some air through it. The majority of the thermal mass (where warm, moist air meets slow to warm parts) should be metal rails, the glass top and the honeycomb all of which could stand some temporary condensation without causing any fatal or near fatal damage. There are two, roughly four-inch diameter holes on the bottom/lower rear, one of which will be open for cold air to drop out of. It has fans that may cause at least some air movement over the electronics. And from the general description of the electronics, the PCB isn’t terribly complicated leaving fewer critical areas where a drop of condensation would fry something.
In my case the GF will arrive on a heated shipping dock sometime around noon. Be driven 45 minutes home in the heated rear of a Jeep and then moved inside a house. By the time it is unpacked and setup (even if it really is 15 minutes or less) I’ll be fine. If it had been delivered directly to my house (where it will be cold in Dec) I’d give it time to be at least cool to the touch before plugging it in, but I wouldn’t be as careful as with something that is primarily electronics.
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seems like the ability to turn the exhaust fan on for a bit should get a nice change over of air and help things warm up faster and remove any water that builds up while running, or would that just cause the problem we’re trying to avoid?
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Nice thing for me is that our ups, fed ex, and dhl drivers show up around 10 and I work till 430 so plenty of time for it to acclimate
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I’m assuming that they will ship “adult signature required.” I’d be pretty unhappy if the UPS guy just left it on my doorstep without a chance to inspect for packaging damage… 
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I’d rather not have to sign for it. No one is home during the day so that means I’ll need to take time to go somewhere and pick it up. I’d rather they left it and I’ll photo it as I arrive home. I’m trusting Dan’s packaging to be sufficient. If there’s anything broken it’ll more likely be internal and not visible from the outside until I unpack it and even that’s not the proof until I fire it up.
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I usually have my expensive stuff delivered to a trusted neighbor that I know will be home or to a nearby Fedex or UPS store for me to pick up latter. If no place to do that nearby, I think I would just take the day off, because I would probably be to excited to get any useful work done anyway. - Rich
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only one day? are you sure? I will ask the week off hahaha the first day is just to stare it 
and read all the instructions 
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Of course, I was just talking delivery. As for the week off, I’m with you. - Rich
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I’m wondering if the 15 minute out of the box and print/cut something will include reading the manual… 
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No… the manual’s dauntingly large. We’re going to work to make it as readable as possible, but the downside of hiring the best safety people in the business is that they are very particular about what gets said how.
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