My glowforge but perfectly last week. I cut out multiple wreaths using my passthrough and the alignment was great. This morning, I tried cutting, and the alignment was completely off. I tried again and it was still off, but I also noticed that the second cut with the passthrough did not work. I cleaned using the Zeiss wipes. I tried for a third time. The alignment was pretty close to perfect. The first half of the cut was perfect. But the second half did not go through at all. I did not change any setting and these were the settings I used last week.
Unfortunately, since the Passthrough is still in Beta, you might need to report this on the Passthrough Beta thread so the engineers can see it. They will be able to track it down much sooner once they realize it is happening in multiple machines.
Any help with why my glowforge will cut the first half of my cut perfectly, then not cut the second part at all? I can deal with manually aligning the passthrough… but I didnt change the settings and it didnt cut through. These two pictures are the same cut, just front and back.
No, I’m not really sure, which is why I wanted you to put it on the Beta thread. There have been a few folks who have reported similar issues and it might be something that the team needs to look into.
I haven’t used the Passthrough for a project in a while, so i haven’t seen it lately.
One thing that you might try…slow the speed down by about 10 points and set up a Custom setting, then use that on one of your prints to see if the second half makes it through.
And always pin the material down flat across the grid. (If you are not doing that now.) Any warp at all will keep it from cutting through when the weight of the material hanging out over the edge pulls the center area up.
(And you might be able to save that and pop it out by sanding down the back evenly…it’s not the optimal situation, but it looks like it almost made it through.)
Whooops! Just took a closer look at that…the problem in your case might be the wood you are using.
See how the second half cuts look charred? That can happen when you hit air pockets or less dense areas that might be inside the wood. Knots can also cause that.
I can’t see the edges of the wood, but if it is plywood, you might have better luck using a better quality material. Trying to fight the air pockets in some plywoods is a royal pain in the tush.
You would definitely need to slow the speed down a few points to try to make it through vugs in the wood. (And it makes a horrible mess on the wood.)
I agree that the whole bottom half not cutting through could be a material issue. Maybe try shining a flashlight through it to see if there’s a big void?
Any places where I could get large materials? I am making these wreaths that are 19in X 20in and the only place I know to get material that size is home depot. And most of the proofgrade materials are sold out.
There might be some kind of MDF material at Home Depot that would work, but you’d need to run tests on samples of it until you find something that does. Maybe particle board? (I don’t know, I’ve never tried that and it all depends on the glue they use and how well manufactured it is. Haven’t found anything to match the Proofgrade stuff for quality.)
Are the large sheets of Proofgrade all sold out too? I picked up a few because they are cheaper than the equivalent number of smaller sheets, and with the Pro, I can cut them down pretty easily.
Other than that…you might try Ocooch. Anything Baltic Birch tends to be higher quality too, but not sure it comes in larger sheets. (It might though…worth checking.)
The problem is the width. I need wood that is about 20 inches wide. I couldn’t find that width on the Glowforge website. Or on the other website you sent.
I just don’t understand why the machine will consistently cut the top, but not the bottom. Then the passthrough application won’t recognize it’s being used until the cut is done. That’s when it asks me to move the cut and align.
And it worked fine last week with the exact same wood. I’m just so disappointed.
Well, that’s why I suggested posting it in the Beta thread…if it is something with the Passthrough software, they will see it there.
The large Proofgrade sheets are 20" wide and 48" long. You can feed them through the slot and cut them off in whatever length you need, so it’s pretty easy to cut a 20" x 20" blank if you want to work with that.
Well crud…just went and took a look and they are sold out of the large sheets too. This absolutely bites. Never mind.
I did take your advice and put this concern in the passthrough thread. I guess I’m just venting. I have 5 wreaths to make that others have purchased and no solution to the material issue.
And as an update… I tried cutting a design that would fit inside the glowforge without using the passthrough. I used the same material as before. I used my original settings (125 speed, full power). It cut just fine.
