Cutting unaligned and double engraving in different locations

Hi, my cut stopped halfway and the UI notified me that I had to clean my air assist fan. After cleaning it, I had to adjust the tension on my carriage belt plate to be able to get the belt back on.

When I tried using my Glowforge again after that, the cut was off from the UI view and it engraved twice in different locations. I didn’t have this problem before so it leads me to think it isn’t becaue my lenses are dirty. I’ve also tried turning my GF on and off but still the same results. Recalibrating also still results in the same error but lessen the off centeredness

Screen Shot 2021-06-07 at 5.02.45 PM


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The tension maybe wrong on that belt. Somewhere on here there are directions for setting the correct tension.
It may also be that you bumped the head while the machine was on? If you think that might be it, just turn it off then gently pull the head under the camera and restart it.

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Ah unfortunately it’s not the second. I tried turning on and off but still the same type of results in the cut and engrave.

For the tension, I tried following these steps. It very well could have been more tense than before I touched it but I’m not able to screw it in any tighter at this point :frowning:

I’m currently recalibrating it to see if it’ll help

EDIT: recalibrating didn’t work

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My first guess based on your photos is that the focus laser is missing your piece and hitting a hole - do you get the same issue if you run a cut on a full piece of material?

If that doesn’t fix it, the tension should look like this:

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Oh ok it it is definitely a problem with the tension. I really can’t get it any tighter though. The metal is peeling off on the screw because of how much I keep trying to force it tighter. I think I might have stretched out the belt too much when I was trying to get it back on the pulley originally.

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:frowning: If the bolt is all the way to the side, then that may be the problem. I’d hold off doing anything else until a staff member can get here and let you know next steps.

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I’m so sorry to hear about the trouble you are running into with your prints not aligning.

After cleaning it, I had to adjust the tension on my carriage belt plate to be able to get the belt back on.

I’d like to review some photos from inside of your Glowforge.

In order to take a closer look at this for you, would you please send me the following photos?

First, power off your Glowforge and remove the crumb tray.

1.The belt under your laser arm with the head pushed to the left:


  1. The pulley under the laser arm on the right side from the front:

  2. The right side pulley under the laser arm from underneath:

Once we can review these photos, we’ll send over the next best steps.

Hi @emly. It’s been a couple days since @MarcM 's response and I wanted to check in and see if you were able to take photos of the requested parts of your Glowforge to help address the cut alignment and double engraving trouble. Feel free to include them in any response, or feel free to let us know if you need more time, and we will gladly keep this thread open to help. Thank you!

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.