Good lord - my glowforge keeps stopping in the middle of a job because it’s saying it needs to cool down. For the record, I have cleaned EVERYTHING on it. Any ideas why the heck this keeps happening. It was working perfect last week.
Lots of things it could be. I believe there was a thread recently where the possible issues were listed extensively, but i could be mistaken.
What is the temperature in the room? If it’s too hot in the room, it will need to cool down- so in the summer in Southern California, i could only cut at night.
Mine also used to overheat if the intake under the machine (your right if you’re facing it) was blocked and it couldn’t get enough air. This happened often because it’s sucking in air, but i have pets, so the pet hair would get sucked in too and block the intake. So i had to vacuum it regularly to clear it.
3 Likes
Are you venting outside or do you have the Glowforge filter?
1 Like
If it is working otherwise it will start up again from where it left off if you wait. Your Glowforge is very temperature-sensitive and cutting or engraving hot will damage every CO2 laser no matter the brand. No matter the room temperature the laser will certainly run a bit hotter than that. A high-volume external fan (<400 CFM) will cool things faster but cannot beat room temperature.
2 Likes
Venting directly outside. I live in WI so it’s definitely not the weather that’s overheating it
It’s in a very cool basement and I live in WI so there is no issues with the weather - I have cleaned everything and even replaced the air assist fan. Nothing is working and I have heard ZIP from Glowforge
I have a high exhaust fan that vents to the outside. I live in WI so there is no issues with outside temperature and my glowforge is in a very cool basement. This is very frustrating as this is my second Glowforge in two years.
Have you checked where the exhaust vents out for possible blockage? Like if a screen is at the end of the hose to prevent creatures from getting in, check to see if that needs to be brushed off. The soot can block it and cause airflow to back up and throw a heat error too.
And did you check your intake? It’s located on the bottom right of the machine- the outside. So you need to look under the machine. There could be dust or something blocking the air from ever entering the machine.
I tried to list items that have caused that error for me in the past. I wouldn’t recommend it to others, but when it got hot, i had a dedicated AC blow air directly where the intake was located, along with ice packs. I don’t put them under the machine, just resting on the right side of the base (right when you are looking at it, but actually the left side of the GF)
It would work for a bit until the ice packs were no longer cool. If you’re certain that your intake and exhaust aren’t blocked somewhere and that the room temperature is not too hot or cold, then maybe you can try it to see if your glowforge can recognize cooler air coming in or not.
I hope you hear back from support soon.
3 Likes
I got a refurb trade in, and it was overheating like this straight out of the box. I had had 5 other pros and none of them had ever overheated when using my same same exact files. This refurb couldn’t go more than 5 minutes cutting, even though everything looked totally clean. I did all the steps with support and didn’t find any resolution…until a year into this problem I finally got brave enough to remove the left side glass lid to get a true look down into my heat sink and fan. Come to find out, before I had received this refurb someone had used a mechanical cleaner in the fan and the clear liquid had settled down into my heat sink ridges like a glue. The whole thing had this coating kinda of like a clear nail polish turning yellow, or the color/feel of dried wood glue. After a few hours of very careful elbow grease and a half bottle of alcohol, I got the heat sink free of the gunk and no more overheating!! Happy to give more details if you think this could be your problem (a dirty heat sink). very likely someone “cleaned” your fan like this if you’re on a refurb, but it could happen based on how sappy whatever you’re regularly cutting is
3 Likes
This topic was automatically closed after 30 days. New replies are no longer allowed.