y new Glowforge and Glowforge Filter was received on October 11, 2019. Today is October 26, 2019 and I have not been able to have a successful completed project since October 18. So far I have exchanged support emails with Michael, Marc, Gary and Ivan. I have explained the problem in great detail, sent many pictures and a video. The major problem is the filtration is not working and my workroom literally fills with smoke. Projects that I ran successfully early on without a hitch now stop multiple times because of overheating. The average temp in my basement is 68. There have been multiple software issues. My last effort to complete a project was a couple of days ago using the Glowforge “Gift of good measure keychain download. First there was a message that the settings were not right. I did not change anything, the settings were what was downloaded from Glowcharge. The job completed but the cutout did not burn through. By the way, I have used nothing but Glowforge material. Now here is the real stunner, the last response that I received this morning is that my filter is full and if after buying and installing a new filter I am still having problems they will continue to help me. How would you rate this level of customer service? I paid them $5,000 to get this level of lousy service? What do I do now? Any suggestions?
It depends on the materials you’re using, but yeah, they can easily fill up that fast with frequent use, especially with things like draftboard. People have had some success using inexpensive prefilters to lengthen the lifespan – a forum search should bring up some ideas.
I totally clogged a filter in just over an hour. One single engrave job on a material that threw off much finer dust than I expected. The filter worked great until it didn’t. I was using a non-proofgrade material that I think was mis-identified.
That was an expensive evening.
The most use I’ve got so far is about a month with moderate use and carefully selected materials (no draftboard, no baltic birch or fiber board). I haven’t come up with a way to extend filter life that I’m happy with yet so I still do a lot of “hose out the window” cutting.
Glowforge estimates the lifespan of the filter cartridge when cutting plywood at just 32 hours, and fails to provide an estimate for Draftboard except “dramatically lower”.
Going back and reading through that post, I think they should display that cost in $$$ / month. Most users won’t think twice about the realized cost until the one Saturday they burn out their entire filter after a full days use, and subsequently get angry at Glowforge for not being “upfront” about it.
If the filter read something like on average $50/month for ~7 hours use. People may think twice about buying one. Most people pay less than that for their internet.
Thank you so much for sending over these images, and supplying such great information. I’m so sorry to hear that you ran into trouble with your Glowforge.
I see you already emailed us about this and we’re working on it there, so I’m going to close this topic.
