I am continuing to get an error message that my Air Assist Fan is not working at the correct speed, despite me cleaning it (over the last three days) each time I receive the error. I am only cutting on PG material and am not understanding why after it works (for about four earrings) it’s telling me to clean it again. I have followed the instructions and my GF is not even a month old! Any other pointers to get me to resolve this error. For example, I just turned on my GF this am to do a cut and half way through the cutting on PG Red Oak, the message came on. I just cleaned the air assist fan yesterday after receiving the same message and it worked fine for the one project I had last night. I am trying to maintain my cool, but with my unit not being a month old I am becoming increasingly frustrated. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you in advance.
I have never cleaned my air assist fan, had my machine since 2017.
It’s likely just a bad fan which, fortunately, can be easily replaced without having to ship the entire machine. Support can check the logs to confirm if that is the case, and will take care of you.
Thank you so much for this. My friend has never had to clean hers, either, so I am dumbfounded as to why I have to clean it so often. Hopefully, someone can assist me with replacing this soon.
I actually just cleaned mine, because of this thread. Figured I might as well look after almost 30 months of use. It was barely “dirty” - I just brushed it with a dry toothbrush that I use to clean up engravings. There was more debris on the carriage plate than on the fan.
My point is - it’s likely just a bad fan, Glowforge doesn’t manufacture them and with over 22,000 machines sold, you’re going to get a bad one now and then.
You already know it’s just bolted onto the carriage plate, and there’s a connector right next to it.
I’m so sorry to hear that you are continuing to run into this error. I’ve extracted the log files from your Glowforge, and found that your Air Assist Fan does appear to be working, but it may be running into trouble. I’d like to take a look at a specific image of your Carriage Plate. When you have a moment, could you please follow the instructions here for removing the Carriage Plate, and send over a photo similar to the one below?:
Once we can review this photo, I’ll send over the next best steps.
There are unfortunately several things that need to be working, as the connection to the sensor can be bad, the connection to the fan via ribbon or the pins on plates behind the head, or in my case magnets that interfered with the fan but I did not find out till they forced the issue with the sensors.
I understand what you mean by barely dirty. After receiving the first message, when I looked at mine, it was barely dirty, too. But cleaned it nonetheless, and now, nothing but error message after message, LOL. I will see what comes out of this. I must admit, I seem to be the “lucky” one that encounters this kind of experience, hehe. Thanks again!
Now that you mention magnets, I have been using magnets to hold down the board…I am wondering if that could be it. Maybe I should go back to using painters tape??? I am learning a lot. Thank you!
Yes. Some users have had issues with magnets. You might try printing without them,
I’ve never encountered this, and my magnets are strong enough that you can’t pull them free if they slip off material and attach the bed directly.
Makes sense…especially since I am trying to make the most of the small “working surface” that I am placing my image near the magnet strips I am using. This makes so much sense. I am going to run a test with my painter’s tape again.
Use these:
Think of what you know about magnetic fields and electricity, and all that moving rapidly through strong fields. I did not think of that while using them but did a double face palm when I thought of it,
Also bed pins you can make are lifesavers but not so flavorful…
Jinx
Oh, I read this post but didn’t even think about printing the pins. Thank you!!!
if you scroll waaay way down in that thread i added some modified pins as well that i find last longer than the original ones but to each their own.
This is why I tell my kids to focus in Science! SMH. LOL.
That’s the cleanest unit I’ve ever seen.
That’s about what mine looked like after close to 30 months. I didn’t bother taking a pic because it didn’t look much different than it would new. Barely any dust on it. I’m wondering if efficient venting is much more important than we think…
To add my experience…
I have had a unit for 3 years and long before the air assist sensor was enabled I used standard quarter size rare earth magnets to hold down material. They worked perfectly. At some point I noticed that the smoke stream blown toward the front door would start and stop as the head moved across the material. I stood behind my GF and could actually see the air assist fan stop every time it moved directly over one of the magnets.
I no longer use magnets to hold down if there is any possibility that the fan will pass overhead. The company enabled the air assist speed sensor some time ago which would cause an error.