The bits between my fingers are actually the “sockets”. So it’s made to be unplugged, but that’s not where it separated, unfortunately. This is NOT an easy place to get a soldering iron, (facing up at the door) but will update after I give it a shot.
Below are the “sockets” which became unsoldered. For some reason the upload process keeps rotating my images 90 degrees.
Hi Paul, hopefully the last 6 years haven’t been too hard on you, welcome back!
Now, I’m not sure, but I think that circuit is just the magnetic switch that was mentioned. So a switch either opens or closes a circuit, could be all you need to do to make the machine functional is to short across the leads to close the circuit. That should effectively bypass the built-in safety shutoff, disabling it. 
Regarding the lid rub, slide your fingertips under the corner of the case, and with your knuckles resting on the table slowly lift that corner with your fingertips while observing the lid clearance. Shim the corner that responds positively.
I would have been more worried about freeze bursting the fluid-filled tube. Hopefully, you will get that thing to wakeup.
Oh, and you definitely hold that record.
No freezing temps here. The fluid filled tube has bubbles though. Hope that’s either normal or “normal enough” to work.
The bubbles are normal, they will purge within a minute of powering it on
My solder joints look positively GHASTLY! 
Soldering at that angle, with super-tiny surface mount stuff ain’t easy. Hopefully they work. 
I used JB Weld 5-minute epoxy to put the whole “aluminum lid handle thing” back on, with a piece of cardboard to protect from drippage. Won’t plug back in until the epoxy is fully cured (1 hour).
Looks good to me. Not bad, while trying not to drip solder on your face.
The lid issue is resolved. Those ugly solder joints apparently work, because the lights get brighter when the lid closes fully.
I think I’m all set up! Connected to Wifi, and it sure looks pretty. (I forgot my desktop PC never had WiFi because it was hardwired, and my tablet wasn’t compatible. So I had to add a WiFi card.)
But um… Now what? The setup process doesn’t give me a “hello world” project, and it doesn’t even say how I would go about cutting something like a DXF from my computer. I didn’t see a manual in the box. Am I gonna need a tablet or can I just send stuff to it from my PC?
Will be researching and I’m sure I will figure it out, but tips welcome.
After you get it up and hooked up to WiFi, run through these tutorials:
And… We have kitty kat!
And the moment I handed this to my 18 year old daughter, she changed her tune from
“Why would you want a laser cutter?”
to
“AAAAaaaaaaw!”
Nice! Congratulations on getting it up and going!
That’s exciting news…the phoenix rises!
Thanks all for your help!
I originally bought it because at the time, my business often required me to create custom mounting plates for lightweight electronics. Acrylic is perfect for that.
But, given the unexpected wait time with the preorder, (I shoulda known) I ended up paying someone with an “industrial” laser cutter to do all that stuff. In total all those custom mounting plates cost more than I paid for the glowforge and air filter.
By the time I got it, the engineering need was over, but I figured I’d be better off selling it than taking a refund. (Turned out to be true – Preorder prices were super low!) I never got around to selling it though.
So it wasn’t supposed to be fun. But my daughter likes projects and this is something we can do together. So, if fun it must be, then fun it shall be. Its name is Georgie Forgie.
Glad you got it up and running. I used mine to make a backing plate to mount a rPi early on, no idea what happened to it. I was working on a stand-alone solution to running my X-Carve CNC (which requires connection to a computer…)
A great name! something you will want to do with your early scrap is make a bunch of these.
YAY! Glad you both had the skills to fix what was broken, and didn’t have anything broken that you couldn’t repair 
If you run the Camera Calibration you may find significuant improvement in being able to place (and re-place) items on your cutting bed.
I’m trying to remember all the truly important things that have changed over the past 5 years, there have been so many updates since 2017! This might be worth scrolling through (newest ones are first):
Camera calibration? That’s a thing???
Perhaps that explains how I “ruined” my daughter’s iPhone 11.
She wanted a couple sanrio (anime) characters etched on the back of her phone, and she provided the graphic. The iPhone 11 has a tempered glass back. So of course, I first tested on a separate pieces of scrap tempered glass, (screen protectors, plus the front of an obsolete phone I had.) It worked well and looked good, so I thought I was ready.
I ran it through, with one pass. But before removing the phone from the bed, I saw that it didn’t quite look as prominent as the pieces in my tests. I figured it was more stubborn type of glass, so doing it again, not increasing the power but giving it 3 passes, would improve it.
Since I hadn’t moved the phone, it should align perfectly, right? Nope.
Not only did it “miss”, but each of the 3 passes in the second run were etched in a different place.
See the photo. My daughter was nice about it, but sad and I felt guilty. The phone works fine and she has a case which covers this, but still a bummer.
Is this just a matter of camera calibration? Even if so, why would it move so much in each of 3 passes in the same run?
That’s not a camera issue, that’s mechanical. With the machine off move the camera back and forth and the bar back and forth and see if you can find out what it’s snagging on. If you don’t feel anything, look at your belts and see if one is loose…
For your daughter’s phone I’d see if you can find an image of the same character in motion and then the “failures” are motion lines!
It’s really weird that a mechanical issue would “move” between passes in the same run, but not during the pass itself. Each of the etched images is shaped perfectly, but moved.
I’ll look into this later. Maybe I’ll do some tests with cardboard to see if I can get consistent results.
Once the setup is done when you turn the machine on, the machine assumes that the placement does not change relative to the drive bands. If the bands slip for any reason the placement will be different than the machine thinks it is.
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