Cooldown times

Community Support
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1

We’ve just received our Glowforge Pro (yay!), but are concerned about the cooldown times.

For our first print we uploaded and etched our own design, everything went smoothly and it finished in the 9ish minutes that it estimated. However, at the end of the print the web interface dialog box says that the print is complete but warns us not to lift the lid until the cooldown process is complete. In the top left of that dialog box it says it is currently cooling down (though the big fan shut down right after the print finished), and the dialog box just says ‘cancel’. It has been in cooldown mode for more than 20 minutes.

Is it normal to take longer than double the print time to cool down, or is this a software glitch?

2

In my experience it’s about 10 seconds.

Or maybe there’s confusion between two things: there’s the “don’t remove the print yet” cool down that normally takes a few seconds, and there’s a “the tube is too hot to continue printing” cool down. I don’t think the latter is supposed to stop you from removing what you just printed. I haven’t actually seen that message, but many others are more familiar with it.

Alternatively, the machine or UI is just stuck on that message even though it was ready 20 minutes ago.

3

Yes, as @chris1 says there is always a short cooldown notice just after a print complete. It’s only seconds (maybe 5-10) in length. Sounds like you just lost a connection somewhere. Though that’s only a logical guess.

4

Thanks, we finally hit cancel at 20 minutes. We were wary of canceling and then running another print immediately for fear of not giving it proper cooldown.

5

You’re find. Even if you were running your Pro at 80 degrees ambient temp, it shouldn’t need that for cooldown.

6

I cant say that I’ve ever seen that message hang more than a few seconds after a print, but it’s probably because I usually open the lid immediately after the exhaust fan shuts down and the blue light turns off, in order to gawk at the results. :slight_smile:

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7

Me too. I snatch the lid open as the fans wind down!

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8

Probably best to open it and lift the parts while the fan is still running so that it extracts the trapped smoke in the crumb tray.

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9

In my case the boosters help with that, they run continuously.

10

Perhaps the GF should leave the fans running gently until the user opens the lid and then stop some time later, or when it is closed.

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11

In my experience (basic, but still) there is a noticeable (several seconds at least) delay between when the fans wind down and the light goers off and when the cooling notice goes away on the GFUI. There are a lot of other things (e.g. refreshing the image after closing the lid) where the GFUI takes a while to respond. Makes me think there might occasionally be cloud issues of some kind.

12

No - that wasn’t a normal cooldown period. Have you seen that again since?

13

We set ours up and it is indefinitely sat waiting to alert us for the cooldown.

We have not been able to print anything.

We have the AC on, and the temps are low, cannot understand why it is not wanting to work :frowning:

Been up almost an hour and still not working ( turned off once, then turned back on because we were going to make a store run and changed our mind, then turned it back on like 15 min after we turned it off. We see the image, we have the ruler ready, but the button does nothing and it says cooldown waiting.

14

You’ll want to start a new topic to make sure that Support sees it and creates a ticket for it. Otherwise additions to existing threads can get overlooked for days. :slightly_smiling_face:

15

Thanks, and yes and I created a new thread, I should have known better.

Thank you all.

16

I find it a pain when Imm in my Garage watching a print finish. The fans stop but I have no idea when the cool down time ends. I have been waiting to hear what sounds like the lens focussing then the button light flashes once. Is that a signal for the cool time done?

I would love to see the button turn to a slow amber flash until the lid is lifted indicating the cool down is completed

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17

The cool down time stops when the fans stop. Safe to open at that point.

(Actually safe to open before that point, but it tends to be stinky.) :smile:

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18

It’s possible that different machines and setups work differently. Just checked mine. The “Ready” indication does not pop up until 10 seconds after the fans stopped. Was still in Cooldown. (a fast fiber internet connection) Then there is the clicking from the head after that for another 15 seconds and the Button will briefly flash. You can open the lid when “Ready” appears but do not send another job and select Print until that final flash. If you do the unit will get stuck on Scanning. At least my machine does as of today.

1 Like
19

This is what mine does. My computer is in a different room, so this sound and the button flash are handy for me if I’m near the Glowforge itself.

20

It’s been a little while since I’ve seen any replies on this thread so I’m going to close it. If you still need help with this please either start a new thread or email support@glowforge.com.