The issue: our printer head lens is not staying in place in the printer head, which is causing the Glowforge to make blurry engravings and not cut all the way through materials, even proofgrade with default proofgrade settings. After we run the printer, if we lift the printer head off the carriage, the printer head lens drops right out. We’ve double-checked the way we’re installing it, the direction we’re installing it, and the end of the install tool we’re using to make sure we’re doing it correctly, and still it keeps happening.
Additional Information: We have a Glowforge Plus model that was purchased in fall 2022/spring 2023 and has worked great until late July/early August this year. We had to replace the printer lens because it was cracked and Glowforge initially sent us the wrong lens (we discovered it was the wrong lens after a post I made here about the issue we’re having now: https://community.glowforge.com/t/lens-falls-out-after-every-print/140818). We finally got the right the lens, then had to replace the printer head mirror because it looked damaged, and now we’re still having issues.
I ran a test print today 12/19/2025 around 2:30 pm. I used a piece of the Proofgrade Medium Basswood Hardwood we still had from the supplies that came with the machine, selected the Gift of Good Measure design, let the Glowforge detect the material using the QR code, verified it chose the right material, left the default settings, and printed it. The engraving is blurry and you can’t read the little numbers or see the lines accurately, and it didn’t cut through all the way. I took off the printer head, the lens fell out, I carefully replaced it, and tried to run the print again. The machine was stuck on focusing for several minutes, and so I checked my internet connection, tried turning it off and back on again, tried refreshing the page, and nothing changed. I went back to the machine, removed the printer head, and though the lens didn’t fall out, when I looked at it, it was crooked in the printer head. I took it out, put it back in, and repeated the whole process. The machine wouldn’t move beyond focusing again, so I checked the printer head again, and sure enough, the lens was crooked again. I fixed it one more time and tried again. This time the machine was able to focus, so I ran the print again, and had the same results of blurry engravings and not cutting through the material. When I lifted the printer head, the lens again fell out. I filmed this whole process, and this link goes to where the video is uploaded in my Google Drive account for sharing: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I4F9LCSxJw_kMDKg38Tb7ZHwMsfQoJxP/view?usp=sharing. It’s 30 minutes because it took me several minutes to realize the lens was crooked and that’s why it wasn’t focusing.
I’m not sure what to do at this point. We recently did all of the cleaning recommended by Glowforge, and everything seems to be normal and running the same as always, aside from the lens. We’re always careful about what materials we use in it. The only thing that seems wrong is that the lens doesn’t stay in place. I don’t see a replacement magnet on Glowforge’s website for inside the printer head, which makes me think I need to just replace the whole printer head, but Glowforge doesn’t have one on their website for the Glowforge Plus model, which is our machine. There’s just the one for the Aura and Spark models, and it’s out of stock: https://shop.glowforge.com/collections/spare-parts?usf_take=56; our printer head is rectangle shaped and this one is square, so even if it was in stock and we tried ordering this one, I know it wouldn’t fit our machine. Does anyone else have any suggestions or thoughts on what it might be or how we could fix this issue?
