Full disclosure, I cleaned my Glowforge for the first time when the fans seemed to be accumulating a lot of dust. When I put everything back together, the machine seems fine except now it can’t engrave without errors. It went from skipping around and misprinting straight lines to this…engraving the design twice with two overlapping shapes. I’ve retightened the tension belt three times. I don’t know what part of the machine needs fixing, but it cuts just fine and there doesn’t seem to be any other issues except engraving. Please help!
UPDATE!!!
After trying out a bunch of recommendations, I finally took the carriage out and found that the two front wheels were broken! I replaced the wheels with new ones and I’m happy to report the Glowforge operates perfectly again!
I hope this helps anyone with the same problem as me.
Your Glowforge will be accurate based on where it thinks the 0,0 point is. If the head moves or does not move based on the machine’s movement, the zero point moves. If the machine is off and you try to move the head and gantry, you might feel where that drag is, though it looks small and constant. Whatever the issue is, it will show the most while engraving, so it might not be easily seen while cutting.
Which Glowforge do you have? There are no “intake fans” on mine, nor any mention of such a thing in the cleaning instructions, so I’m struggling to understand how cleaning an “intake fan” could affect head movement.
