Explosion

was engraving and cutting acrylic, everything was going smoothly, the computer said cooling down would start shortly, I looked everything good, checked back again a few moments, said the same thing. I stepped outside my back door because of the fumes. heard a popping sound and it has exploded I can’t seem to load pictures and from reading mine exploded

Do you have any pictures of your explosion?

Yes I do not sure how to make them show

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vicious!

wow and ugh and so sorry

Ouch. I hate to see that happen.

yikes! it is good that you are safe. That looks terrible.

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Wow… that sure looks bad. Based on all of the soot and burned cables, there must have been quite a fire. Sorry for your loss.

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Oh no! Have you contacted Glowforge at support@glowforge.com ?

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Yikes! I am glad you are OK, and I’m so sorry for your Glowforge!

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How long from the time you last saw it to hearing the “popping sound”? If the fumes were that bad outside the machine, what were you doing before they got bad, the filter, venting outside, or other?

The damage seems everywhere, is it possible the fumes were enough inside the machine to ignite? Was there still a fire burning when you got back in front of it?

I am very sorry for your tragedy. However if there is something we can learn perhaps we can save the same thing happening to others. If it was the intricacy of the cut, the build up of fumes, or source of material, those would be very different things to watch out for. I am sure a lot of folk push their filters to get the last bit of good out of them and do not think that a build up of fumes could cause those issues,

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Yes I have

I heard the pop then the explosion and yes there was still fire. But most damage seems to be on the cord to the printer head. I love it the detail is so awesome but scared of it now

Were you using a filter? I have cut/engraved a lot of acrylic lately and unlike wood that there is obvious smoke I can barely see any effluent at all, even though we know that it can’t be all that different in volume. If there were so much smoke buildup pouring out of the lid one would be more alarmed than if the same were invisible, but in either case once just the right mix was reached it would flash like a similar mix of gasoline. Only later (a minute?) would the heated glass go making a louder noise.

With a material like Zebrawood, I have seen it start a coal that can self sustain and if left ignored might consume the whole piece of wood, but I think it would take a while if ever for that coal to light a flame, and quite a bit longer before the flame grew enough to break the glass lid, but a buildup of fumes could be a major conflagration in moments once ignited, and it would be a lot easier to not realize the problem brewing and like magnets should have a flashing red light for the average user to be aware of before it becomes a problem.

Holy sh*t! That’s awful! So glad you’re ok and the fire seems to have been contained! Hope GF is able to figure out what happened.

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Thanks

That sucks. :frowning: Glad everyone is OK.

Ty

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I am so relieved to hear you weren’t hurt. Sounds like quite a few of us are hoping you can figure out what happened. Have you had the machine very long? Did you have your fan on? I hadn’t heard of something like this before (got my machine Christmas 2017).

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2 months fan I guess was on wasn’t that automatic. I have heard other stories about cooling systems malfunctioning