I kicked on the GF today to do some test cuts on material and after a few 3 second test cuts, finding the right settings for the cut and then an 18 second cut, I let the machine finish it’s cool down cycle then shut down the power.
A short perior later (more than an hour, less than 3) I kicked back on the switch to get an Orange Button and the message about “ALERT Cooling”. Thought this was strange since it was powered down for a couple of hours.
After reading some forum posts on the subject and not finding a solution or an experience that quite matched and just couldn’t find anything so here I am with a post of my own. This has persisted all day.
The GF has a duct running out a window, 90 deg at GF exit and 90 deg at window about 4 foot straight run.
The temp inside the machine back by the power supply (where it was always hottest) was around 78F most the day but has gone up since it had the error. I am using an IR thermometer.
I reconnected the WiFi,
I cycled the power waiting more than a minute,
I logged off and on my Glowforge account,
I restarted my computer,
I unplugged the GF for a few minutes and plugged it back in.
I waited all day…
…Still sporting a fancy orange light.
Any suggestions? It is now night time, the GF is still on but Orange Button, and now the temp inside is 83.6 F, the room it is in is at 74 F, it is 57 F outside the tail of the duct. It has been idle Orange Button all day. This can not be normal. The machine is getting turned off and unplugged until I can get some help.
If you are getting that far above ambient at idle you might check to make sure that either A. You don’t have an air intake blocked (bottom front right of machine, while looking at it), or B. Your exhaust isn’t somehow clogged up.
Its recently set up. Only burned with it 3 times. The vents and intakes are all free. Definitely scanned all the forums for potential causes. It is strange for sure so that’s why the new post. It doesn’t have to do with ambient temp issues from my deduction. We’ll see where the technician leads me.
Intake location is good to know… Would it be best to hang that off the edge of the worktop? Open up more space or is it designed to be at the height it is with a table under leaving the 0.5" gap?
Weird… wonder if the polarity isn’t reversed on your peltier cooler?
@bjorn.rindal - as long as it’s over a flat, firm surface with an air gap, it should be OK. You wouldn’t want it on a soft surface that could disrupt the air intake, but then, you’d also not want the unit on a soft, pliable surface anyways.
Its a stainless work bench… Everything looks clear. So far GF requested a picture of the pins on the head where the ribbon connects. Lead you anywhere?
You should be plenty fine with the work surface and it pulling air in.
I have no idea… I’m just thinking out loud, mostly.
I don’t believe it will trip a temp alert for ambient air temp; the temp alert comes from the coolant temperature.
That the temp is increasing significantly above ambient at idle is why I wondered about the air intake being blocked by something. You should be able to feel the air disturbance of it pulling air in while at idle, if you put your hand or something near or just underneath that front edge. If it’s getting air, and pushing air out, then something is generating quite a bit of heat inside, which made me wonder about the polarity being reversed on the peltier. Peltiers can act as both coolers or heaters depending upon how they are wired.
It is pulling a suction there. I noticed the radiator there when I was taking temp measurements. The coolant reservoir seems normal temp. The warm spot is the power supply corner, back right.
The temp is 88F back at the power supply now. Its at 80.8F at the radiator.
This morning after having it switched off all night the power supply is at 69F and the radiator is at 72F.
… Still no action from my GF and an orange button. When its on it cycles a pump or a fan but the xyz table appears to be inactive. No calibrate, nothing. No zip zip… It truly is sad.
I think the worst part is not being able to do anything but watch my GF on idle with an orange button. Some kid of monitoring interface or status output would be nice. I guess there is a limited amount I could really do but at least a temp output so we can monitor the bounds and make educated decisions on holding off and letting things cool down or just running it and letting it trip the sensors.
Now that I turned my GF on, and it has been idle with orange button since my last post, the temp at reservoir is near 80F (that’s just an IR reading on the outside), the vent heat sink is 81 F, the power supply is 87F and the radiator is at 82F. So somehow my coolant is heating itself up. Room temp is 74F, outside is 74F today.
I had an issue like your describing just today. First I started to make the first cut for the day and it started and set over the material doing nothing. I turned it off homed it out and it worked. The second cut a hour later gave me a cooling down error before it would start the cut. This happened about twice. I turned off the heat in the room opened the window to bring down the room temperature. After doing this a error did not come up again. It was 22 degrees outside around 76 degrees in the room when this happened. Cooling the room down seems to fix this so far. This has only happened when the room was this warm. But you would think the pro version would run with no issue at 76 degrees. I no how this can rack your nerves when this happens.
