I bought a refurbished glowforge, and got it setup and finally started to try and use it in earnest this past week. It works well for small items on the left hand side, but as soon as I try and go right the cuts get shallower and shallower, plus I get a shadow image. This kind of seems like some sort of alignment or belt issue possibly, but I wasn’t sure where to start to try and fix this. Thanks, I’ve attached an image to show the issue.
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I’d at the least check the belt tension, the two windows that pass the beam from the left to the head, and the lens inside the head.
Belt tension should give consistently bad results across the job but worth looking at if there is crude in the belt teeth.
I’d check the windows for haze or spots, and the same for the lens. It’s possible the alignment is off and is hitting a dirty spot somewhere in line and altering the beam path…but unless it’s a real bad spot, I’d guess belts first.
Bad window/beam path alignment usually results in fading power right to left not mis-cuts.
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Ok, thanks. The unit came straight from Glowforge as a refurb so I wouldn’t think that there should be crud or haze or anything with it. I could see some sort of alignment from shipping or something though, that would make sense to me.
The mirror on the left side (under the cover) is sometimes dislodged by shipping and then that mis-aligns the beam on its way to the lens. It’s not uncommon and it requires a trip back to GF to get fixed as it’s not user serviceable. Your warranty should cover it. For the right side fade, mirror misalignment is more typically the issue than crud in the belts or tension issues. If the head mirror (under the flat top cap) is inserted correctly and the lens is “cup side up”, then it’s most likely the left side mirror.
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I did an alignment test, kind of shows how poor it is on the right side. This is starting to look like a trip back to glowforge. Which is so weird because this unit just got back from there.
Yeah that is definitely fade. The original pic just kinda showed multi cuts. Neither fedex nor ups are gentle with these machines. We’ve seen them delivered/held in every conceivable position short of inside out. But I’ll hand it to the delivery companies….they’ve tried.
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The left mirror alignment is susceptible to mishandling by the courier. They bounce the boxes around a lot and if the mirror isn’t locked in well, it gets moved and then this is what happens. Unfortunately it’s not something you can fix. 
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