Erros and Grinding Sounds

Problems and Support
#1

I sent an email to Glowforge yesterday but haven’t gotten a response yet.

I’ve been having issues off and on for a couple of days. Sunday, I was having issues with the print being around an inch off of where it was on the screen, over and over again. After tying a few times I got the ‘your glowforge has an error restart the machine or refresh your browser’ so I refreshed to no avail and restarted. I got the message again pretty much immediately and restarted a second time. Print was lining up again. A couple of hours later I was getting the error messages again. In total I think I had to restart because of the messages around 5 times. Later in the day it started making a very loud grinding noise during startup - this is not the first time it has happened. It also got stuck on focusing for around 10 minutes at one point so I restarted the machine for that as well. I turned off the machine, moved the head back to the back left corner and restarted and everything was fine.

Then yesterday morning it made the terrible grinding sound during a print. The whole print head carriage was crooked in the machine and printing at an angle. I again turned off the machine and moved the print head back to the right spot. It print mostly ok after that. One thing I cut and engraved somehow cut crooked - I mean like its the front and back of a journal and it’s the same size/shape and one cut skewed, it’s not salvageable. While that print was fully on the board in the app, part of it didn’t actually cut on the board so that was a ruined 45 min cut/engrave.

I’ve been running into the error messages over the last week or two, it’s just becoming more and more frequent.

I cleaned all of the lenses and camera on Saturday, again on Sunday when it was having issues lining up correctly, and then again yesterday when it printed off again.

I’m not sure what’s going on with it, it’s not constant, but it’s getting frequent enough that I’m getting concerned about my business.

#2

You have opened up a second support ticket by posting here in addition to emailing support. This results in slowing the support process down.

Is it possible you are bumping the printhead when the machine is turned on? This can result in alignment issues and with the Glowforge printhead trying to go too far to the right or left. Also, you may have something impeding the movement of the carriage. Check for debris on the rails and that your wheels and belts are ok.

#3

It makes me think you are trying to laser something that is too high (more than .5 inches) above the bed and the air assist fan is running into it.

#4

it’s 1/4" purebond from Home Depot

#5

And it doesn’t overhang the honeycomb part of your tray anywhere? If not then you must have some debris somewhere that is inhibiting the smooth movement of the gantry.

#6

It did not overhang, it was actually a piece that was cut a little smaller than I normally cut them. I cleaned the rails and wheels yesterday and didn’t find any debris, they were dusty but clear. The belts look fine as well. It happened twice in about a 12 hour period, the first time it didn’t go sideways it just made the loud grinding noise twice so we shut it down and after restarting it worked ok. It’s happened in the past once as well and I never got answers as to why it did it then when I emailed them. It cut the gift of good measure ok so that was the end of the convo essentially.

Like I said, it’s not a constant issue but between that and the error messages that are getting more frequent I’m concerned. It’s been over 24 hours since I put in a ticket and haven’t heard anything back from them. Last time I had an issue they suggested that I post here - I generally just ask in the facebook groups when I have small issues and can work them out.

#7

Well that is odd. Maybe its an issue with one of the stepper motors but you’ll have to wait to hear from support unfortunately. Hopefully they will get back to you today. Good luck and sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.

#8

I appreciate you trying to help. :slight_smile:

1 Like
#9

Hi there @cassiejacobs - I’ve just come across your email ticket and sent some information your way. Since we’ve already been in contact via email I’m going to go ahead and close this topic. Please let us know in that email thread if you need anything!

#10