Does anyone know where I can get a black lid cable quickly? I have the dreaded “Lid Open” issue and have done everything I have read in all the support documents, all the posts I see here, and posts I’ve found in other forums. I am pretty sure that the inevitable next step is to replace the black lid cable, but they are out of stock in the Glowforge shop (inexcusable) and my machine is out of warranty.
I will follow up with more detail in a bit just in case one of the amazing people in this forum has some advice beyond the standard. Thanks!
Also, perhaps I should ask if anyone has anything to add from any support they’ve gotten from Glowforge further than replacing the cable. Glowforge has a policy of closing these topics and continuing support via email, which deprives the rest of us of the answers. Considering that support seems to take a few days to respond, that’s frustrating. I have until the end of this week to get my machine up and running again and fulfull a job, or I will lose $2500. That’s a fortune to me.
I’m hoping they have some available. They may have marked them as out of stock in the shop to keep people from buying them when they don’t need them to try to price gouge people like us who need them. There are a lot of people trying to sell them for ridiculous amounts, from $85 to almost $300. They’re less than $20 in the Glowforge shop. There’s one person on ebay selling one for $399. ::sigh::
oh I saw that. I found one guy on Ebay selling for $80 plus $11 shipping.
I tried to negotiate the price but he told me he selling them fast lol, I checked his selling, he sold 2 of them this month
GF should have them for replacements 10000%. If not I’d buy it from that guy for $100 total.
But for business we should have at least 2 machines… I’m thinking to buy the basic model actually or Epilog laser
I just changed mine for the camera not working issue and it still isn’t working so I’d be extremely hesitant to buy one of those from Ebay. I still have one more and last year it took changing it twice in one day to fix this issue but I really dont want to use my last back up in case that’s not the problem. Editing to say that I stupidly used my last cable and now I have no lights and mine is saying “lid open”.
I’m going to report my issue with the “Lid Open” directly to support and leave this post in the hopes of finding a source for the Black Lid Cable since Glowforge is out of stock. It’s sad how there are people who are selling these for ridiculous amounts of money, taking advantage of people who are having problems.
It’s also sad that this common problem seems to take so long to rectify. I’m hoping Glowforge has the staff available to find a solution quickly.
Posting here or sending an email will open tickets in their support system. If you’ve done both, they will close the discussion here “to avoid confusion”.
Glowforge doesn’t stock parts. Everything is outsourced. You won’t hear anything on availability or shipping until the parts provider has an update, and that can take days.
Thanks, I appreciate the heads-up. I’ve contacted them via email but noted that this issue isn’t reporting the problem, but rather trying to find sources for a replacement cable.
I understand why Glowforge would outsource the parts (even though they list some of them like the back lid cable on their site) because of operating expenses,. But delays like that for replacing parts is very hard to swallow. I don’t think that’s acceptable, especially since this is a common issue that is caused by a serious design flaw. The cover of my machine opens WAY farther than the point where it puts stress on that cable, almost 10 inches farther. That’s a serious oversight considering that it puts us out of commission when that cable fails. I would never have expected a flaw like that with a $6000 machine that’s supposed to be so slick. That part should have long since been recalled and replacements sent to everyone who had those short cables (I understand the newer ones are longer).
As others have pointed out in other posts, it’s a risky practice to rely on just one machine. But many of us are not service bureaus. We are individuals who reacted to Glowforge’s marketing the machine as a good solution for individuals, small offices, etc. Their ads feature parents with children. In my own case, I chose Glowforge as a new endeavor in my life after I lost everything in a natural disaster, including my previous business. It took me a long time to save up the money to buy a machine. Of course it tempts that cruel Murphy fellow, but there’s no way I would turn down a job like the one I just got, which would net me almost $3000. But I have to deliver it by the end of the week. And some of that money was to pay for a trip home to see my family. I’m not saying this as a sob story, but just to let Glowforge know that I’m one of the people they directly chose to target with their campaign. So when something like a ribbon cable repeatedly breaks down because of a major design flaw on their part, they should jump through hoops to get people like me up and running again as quickly as is possible. This scenario should have already been addressed. Companies often don’t care about what their customers go through, but this is the most important thing going on in my life right now. The fact that it’s a cheap part that they should have in stock makes the frustration worse. It’s depressing. I bought the Glowforge to get OUT of the depression that happened after losing my home. :-/
I hope they step up to the plate. This will determine my future with the company. I have been considering a second machine which I would have to buy on credit (something I really don’t want to do lately) but I need to know they care about their customers like their marketing claims.
I’ll shut up now. LOL It’s just upsetting what the repercussions might be because of this situation. It’s hard to accept since it should have and could have been rectified and planned for once the flaw in their design was obvious.
I’ve changed lid cables on 3 machines now, several times on a few and I can assure you that mine wasnt opened up far enough for stress on it. Mine sits on a workbench with a shelf on top of the bench. It wont even let the lid open to 90 degrees so it’s much less than that. Also this current machine, most of the time I just opened the door at the front and slid my wood etc in there with barely having the top open and it still happened to me.
I have full sympathy and don’t disagree with anything you said.
I picked up a lid cable when they came back in stock back in 2019, iirc, just to have on-hand. They had been out of them for months, it seems, and my machine was a couple of years old.
Not saying everyone should do that. I just had “credits” I was never going to use for anything else, so it seemed like a good idea.
need lid cable asap too.