ahhhhhhh! the day has come. my little machine has stopped zooming and has only a putter in him. After running my machine several hours a day for the last week, we have a problem. It starts up, little fan zoom sound, i hear a whirrrrr, then it tries to move and just has quick short jolts of movement. tried restarting everything, reconnecting the wifi network, unplugging, cleaning, new browser. i’ve got nothin’. Any techs out there? i’ve got craft fairs comin’ up. yikes!
thank you.
Had the same issue on my basic. I had to remove everything from the tray, cleaned it, removed all material. Also. cleaned the head, all mirrors and the lights on the head, cleared the cache in the browser and logged out of the UI and then logged back in to refresh the link. Turned it back on and no issue since…
Don’t know if that your issue but’s it’s a start…
thank you! there are a few steps in there i didn’t do. i’ll try that when i get home.
@Edyvetter, by posting here, you have opened a ticket with the Support team. I am NOT part pf that team, but wanted to chime in with some (potentially) good news. Since it’s just over a year, your machine may be out-of-warranty. I don’t know what Glowforge may do to handle repair / replacement, but I would strongly suggest checking with your credit card company to see if they by chance extend the warranty on goods purchased with their card.
For example, American Express doubles the warranty on any goods purchased on (most of) their cards, up to an additional year. (Not sure about the co-branded ones). And if there is an extended warranty, the “AmEx extension” gets tacked on AFTER the extended warranty. I think that Discover, and many Visa cards may have something similar.
So If you are truly out of warranty and GlowForge can’t help, then you may have an alternative path for assistance.
Best of luck,
Todd
thank you! i appreciate the feedback. i have an extended warranty since i was an original backer of the kickstarter campaign, so i should be good until april), so i’m hoping this is covered. fingers tightly crossed!
The Amex warranty has helped me before, and I can say it has more than paid for the annual fee a few times over. I once had a video card that blew up, and Amex gave me a full credit 3 years later. I was pretty impressed, and it was super easy (and the video card was around $500). I try to use Amex now for all my major purchases.
I wonder how that works with a unit that was not delivered until more than two years after the credit card use.
It would probably require an explanation, but I would guess that the shipping date info from Glowforge and the UPS tracking notification would probably be helpful.
I’d also suggest describing the original purchase as a “pre-order” rather than a kickstarter, in case there are any special exclusions. Given that the product is exactly what is being produced today, you would probably be fine with Amex. Can’t speak for other card companies. In the pre-Iphone days, I convinced the small consulting firm to let me buy my blackberry on my personal card. They would typically have severe issues at about 18-21 months (1 year Mfg warranty) and Amex replace 3 or so full price blackberries over the years for me. Our IT / purchasing team loved me for that.
I’m so sorry you ran into trouble. It looks like your Glowforge is connected and you’ve been able to print since contacting us. That’s great!
Could you please let me know if you’re still experiencing any problems?
i’ve been able to cut and engrave, but i still had a sputtering machine the next time i turned it on. i had to unplug it and move the printer head to the middle of the machine and restart for it to move. i’ll work more this evening.
Check your belts. Look for any fraying or bits of material stuck in the teeth or near the pulleys.
I haven’t yet had my GF fail because of belt issues, but I have had my 3D printer fail numerous times because of belt stupidity (and it uses the same style belts).
I do not knowif moving the head to the center is now the way to go but (while the machine is off) I have been putting the gantry all the way to the back making sure it is even to the back on each side so it is assured straight, and then I move the head all the way to the left as that is where it goes to rest in any case.
The one time I forgot the head went all the way to the right and beat its head against the wall… if the head hits something the gantry is likely to get skewed as well so pushing it all the way back solves the problem even before you know it exists.
I extracted the logs to investigate the problem you reported, and I did find a couple centering events that had some issues back on Tuesday 12/27.
If you run into that problem again, try the following:
If you’re still having problems, could you take a video of what you’re seeing? You can share it here, or email it to us at support@glowforge.com.
thanks. i had to turn it off again last night because it wasn’t moving and just doing the little juts. after it powered off, i cleaned the mirrors and moved the arm down to the center and moved the head over the camera. seems to be okay. i’m worried that this might be persistent. there’s a different sound coming from the motor when it runs right to start detecting material and start a job. if i have the art at the top of the board and the laser doesn’t have to move down, the whir from the motor is different than before. it’s deeper. no longer high pitched.
Thank you for the additional details. Would you mind sending a video of your Glowforge when you try printing the Gift of Good Measure on Medium Draftboard, and emailing the video to us at support@glowforge.com? I’m going to close this thread, and we can continue troubleshooting over email.