The Focus button in the UX fails with an error every time – “An error occurred on your Glowforge”. The head moves to the selected spot, a red light shines on the material, the head returns to the top left, then the error message comes up. Happens in both Chrome and Firefox.
Also Snapmarks – which I am very reliant upon – has started to fail as well; it says that it is scanning for Snapmarks, the head does not move, and after 20 seconds or so, I get the error messages “Snapmarks do not match” and “We’re sorry, an unexpected error occurred”. I have used Snapmarks quite a bit and the Snapmarks absolutely do match.
Without those features, I am struggling to align things (dogtags and other such things) in my jigs properly.
My Glowforge is an OG Glowforge from the “Kickstarter-ish” round.
I assume you are cleaning the two windows either side of the lens on the bottom of the print head? I have read that it’s possible for debris to get in behind them and, if so, could be obstructing the view of the camera behind the one opposite the laser/white LED, so both of those functions would fail.
You have had a great run with an original machine.
There is no reason that proper use of jigs would fail as they don’t rely on the camera/snapmarks. If your artwork is properly centered in the cut outlines of the jigs, the artwork will be aligned on the blanks that are inserted into the cutouts.
Clean the pins in the printhead, inspect the wihte print cable for bare areas and contact Glowforge support for their insight.
Yes definitely made some fun things with this machine.
I guess it depends how you have used your jigs. I have relied on Snapmarks with my jigs so that I wouldn’t need to worry about a number of concerns and got pretty much perfect alignment from the feature. I can certainly experiment to change my process although I would prefer not to – especially if I can work out what is going on with my machine that is affecting these features.
I will reach out to GF support unless someone else has some good suggestions…
Those users without snapmarks create their jigs with the text for engraving included in the jig file. They cut the jig from inexpensive material ignoring the engrave step. Remove the cutout and insert the blanks without moving anything. Focus on the blank (or input manual height if auto focus isn’t working. Ignore the camera view. Ignore the cut and enable the engrave. The text will be aligned as it was in the original jig file.
Yes, that seems like it would work if you recreate the jig each session and don’t accidentally move the jig. I am sure there are ways to work around these issues with care and not to go on about how great I think Snapmarks are too much but they let me revisit previous jigs, not worry about moving the jig accidentally, fix up mistakes made on previous pieces, etc etc.
It might be completely unrelated, but how is the lighting fit the machine? I recall having a similar issue a few years ago, but my issue was something to do with lighting? Like my machine bed was too dark. And i think turning a lamp on over the machine fixed it? It was a problem in my old house. I think the mdf i cut left a film of gunk on the led lights that i didn’t want to clean off for fear of breaking something, so i just turned a lamp on over the machine after that.
Sort of like my Tesla Model Y’s backup camera being in the vortex of the air over the car, so in New England slush your backup camera is completely coated with gunk and you can’t see to back into the charger in the winter on the highway without first getting out and wiping. Putting optical cameras critical to operation in the gunk stream is a recipe for failure.
Put a couple locator pins, or tape, in your crumb tray that yo your jigs up to. Never move these pins and always align your jigs to them the same way should do the trick.
You might want to recaliber the bed as set focus and snapmarks are both very dependent on that. Also the red laser and camera on either side of the main lens need to be very clean. BTW, the window under the far left of the gantry is sealed so no smoke or air get there. It is a removable window for replacing but cleaning the back is not needed…
I’m with you. They should really give Snapmark to everybody. It’s literally the most useful feature they’ve ever made. Easy to use, and perfect repeatable jobs every time. I use them with almost all of my jobs.
There are “fixes” for that, I think they were called boots or something.
For some reason, my tray has always seated back in the precise same location. I tested it by scoring, removing the tray with the piece still on it, putting it back, and repeating the print. Could not tell it had been printed twice. I did the same when I got my 2nd machine (same tray, that is not replaced) - ditto..
