Garage workshop question

Might have been cover before, but I can not find the exact answer. I want to move my glowforge to my garage. I live in Omaha Nebraska where it gets real cold in the winter and real hot during the summer. I just moved to a house with a three car garage. It has a space under a window where I can vent. I am willing to buy a heater and fans to cool the garage but not spend a fortune. Has anyone have their forge in a garage in weather like ours and make it work year round.

Better minds will prevail on this but my gut feeling is it will not like the temp extremes. Esp the heat in the summer - a fan will not keep it cool IMO.

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For summer, you’ll likely need a portable ac. You can redirect the air directly at the bottom right where the intake is so you don’t have to cool the entire garage. I did this outdoors in high 80s heat for maker faire without a hitch.

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thanks! that is very helpful

I live in Florida and have hot summers but not the cold you have in the winter. My shop is in my third garage bay which has a wall between the shop and garage. I have a mini-split heat pump that both heats and cools the space. They are not expensive and work really well.

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The mini splits I have seen are around 1000 dollars is that the not too expensive?

There are definitely a Lot of posts on this topic; while the original folks were waiting for the first batch to go out, space prep was a major point of discussion.

Improvements have been made in the temperature tolerance, but it’s still pretty sensitive, you absolutely don’t want it to freeze, and fluctuations in hot weather can lead to condensation, so you’re going to want to keep it in a stabilized environment even when it’s not being used. You’ll also want to guard against outside air infiltration from the vent, so a sliding cut-off door or just disconnect it from the vent when not in use.

I live in SouthEast Pennsylvania and my original plan was to have it in my 3 car garage and I scrapped that plan pretty quickly, as insulating the space and then cooling/heating it would have been very difficult.

Search the forum for topics like Temperature, Humidity, and the like and there should be a lot of hits.

Good luck and let us know what direction you try!

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You could make many things to get your Glowforge to be able to do work in the summer, but if you cannot maintain a minimum temperature 24/7 so that the coolant freezes that would result in a busted laser tube that would not be good at all. Even a heater could fail with a loss of power. Your house will be well insulated to stand such issues and the garage will have enough to keep the cars, but you cannot add antifreeze to the laser coolant.

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Not really for what you are getting. They are very much like a central ac. They also don’t require a window.

I’m not sure I know what units your refer to. Do you know of any specific models or where to look?
Thanks!

Here is a heap pump like I am talking about. Do a search for mini split heat pump. You can get one for cooling only, but for your location I would get heat too. https://www.sylvane.com/senville-leto-12000-btu-mini-split-heat-pump.html?s_cid=cse_bingshopping&mkwid=&crid=81707505889202&mp_kw=&mp_mt=e&pdv=c&msclkid=63208b3f04c41115f9a2d67494c5e591

Thanks!

Thanks, everyone for the tips and helpful links! I would suggest reading over our manual for tips on how to properly store your Glowforge. I am going to close this thread now. If you have any other questions, feel free to start a new one!