I submitted a ticket for support but just curious if anyone has experienced this and what your outcome was. My GF Pro was working fine all weekend. But this morning I went to cut my first piece and it went thru all the normal motions and then I pressed Start, and it sounded like everything was as usual but I noticed there was no cuts or scores showing up on my material. I noticed the Co2 laser tube didn’t have that pinkish glow so I’m wondering what might be the problem and if I’m in for a pricey outcome. This is my 3rd Pro since I purchased a brand new one in November 2022. The brand new $7k one didn’t last 90 days before they replaced it with a refurbished one - which lasted maybe a year then I had to purchase the next refurbished one. Seems like I recall the pinkish glow had gone out on that 1st refurbished one also. So I’m starting to wonder if this is something to be expected? I asked ChatGPT and it said normally you have issues leading up to a bad laser tube or it might be a problem with the laser power supply. I haven’t moved, loosened or disconnected anything and it worked fine till this morning.
There’s a help page about this:
Definitely go through those steps first.
Beyond that you might have a pretty common short circuit issue with your high voltage line to your laser tube. It’s possible to fix that yourself if you’re handy.
This is going to sound stupid but make sure that your power is not set to 1.
#5 in the help page that I linked is about this possibility. After running a test print with standard pg settings:
- If the laser appeared and the print was successful, it’s likely that settings on the previous print were too low for the laser to appear. If so, please check your settings and try another print.
Which illustrates my main issue with the Glowforge help pages. They don’t focus on the easiest things to test at home first, they instead prioritize following a specific test protocol and eventually get to the solution.
@davidgal is right, a very possible scenario is that your settings are wrong. It’s super easy to check so that should be the first thing on the list. It should be step five after running a test print.
They have this issue on several of their help pages, which is why I have rewritten so many of them into FAQ entries. I try to show what’s the fastest and easiest thing to check — even if it’s not the most likely thing — before going into the deeper dive. I wish Glowforge would rewrite some of their help pages with that in mind.
I was just about to suggest double checking this.
It has happened to all of us at one time or another. The power accidentally gets set to 1 or something similar and then it doesn’t fire.
I checked the power on the last files I cut (the night before this started) and oddly enough the power was set to 1 on the cut section of that design (but I did not change it, so I’m not sure why the machine would do it automatically). So I changed it back to full power and still the same. It goes thru all the normal steps perfectly and then acts like it’s making the design but nothing is showing up on the material. There’s no errors on the program either. GlowForge support replied back that it’s “experiencing an electrical failure that cannot be repaired remotely and I could purchase a refurbished unit for $4k+”