Glowforge Pro Overheating

We’ve been having a lot of issues with our pro having to stop repeatedly and cool when cutting thick draftboard. Any tips or solutions for this?

What is the temperature in the room? If your exhaust fan is clean, ducting good, and inlet fan not blocked, then reducing ambient temperature it is pretty much the only path…

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If you cut a lot of draftboard, remove the hose at the back of the machine and check to make sure that the grid behind the fan isn’t clogged up. (It can reduce the air flow out and trip the temperature sensor prematurely. Use a pipe cleaner and vacuum hose attachment to clean out the grate.)

(And let us know if that is what the problem was.) :slightly_smiling_face:

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It’s at 70 degrees Fahrenheit right now. I’m opening the window before my next cut to see if that helps. Currently 65 outside.

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Just cleaned it. It wasn’t terrible, but hopefully a little cleaning helps. Giving it another go now!

Still had to pause once during my next cut. Also have a fan running and pointed at the right side of the machine.

At that temperature I’m surprised…how long is the pause for and is it resuming after the pause?

It was a 7 minute cut. Paused once for about 2 minutes with about 2 minutes remaining and then finished the rest without having to stop again.

During our summer, I keep my home in the high 70’s and have never had it pause or overheat.

Are you sure the exhaust fan is running? It’s really loud when it fires up as you probably know.

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It should be able to handle that easily, especially with a Pro model. Support is probably going to need to look at your logs to see if they can spot anything out of whack. (But checking the fan is also a good idea.)

Yes, I’m sure it’s running and we have a compact filter attached to it.

That’s what I thought to. We never had issues with it pausing when we first started using it but now it does it frequently.

Ahhhh! Is it starting to fill up a little more with smoke too? (Not being drawn out as well by the filter fan?) If you’re using a Compact Filter with draftboard that is a quick trip to filling it up and needing a new filter.

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Ah. My understanding is that it shouldn’t be running with the CF attached - that’s why there’s a setting for it in the UI.

However, knowing you have a filter, that definitely points towards an airflow issue. Have you checked to see if it’s full?

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Draftboard is a filter killer unless you have a washable prefilter . I had thought my Blu-Dri was filling up what was as it turned out a prefilter and ran a vacuum cleaner over it. Your situation may vary but particularly draftboard kicks out a lot of larger particles.

Even grocery stores carry the thin open cell foam for room air conditioners that does not block air much but takes out the larger particles and the worst fillers of the expensive filters.

Yes we actually just got a new filter a few weeks ago.

Yeah that’s what we’re realizing. I think we’re going to look for an alternative 1/4" material that we can use instead of the thick draftboard. We just need something that thickness that can be painted.

The so called Revolution plywood is much less expensive, a hair thinner (5mm). and actually wood. It is worse than such woods as maple or acrylic but way better than compressed sawdust. Oak plywood is very dirty, but not that dirty, and extremely strong. Baltic Birch is better in everything than Revolution but a lot more expensive,

Best for every case I think is that washable prefilter. The most fine particles and chemical stink are the tiniest part of the mass of smoke, and they will last well if that was all they saw.

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My opinion is that the bonding material (glue/resin) in manufactured materials is the biggest concern. Most natural products (pine would be a definite exception) don’t have “ingredients” that produce sticky residue when vaporized.

There might be manufactured products that work, but a suitable hardwood is probably going to be easier to find.

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Virtually all organic materials leave a sticky residue when vaporized :nauseated_face: the bigger question is what does not get vaporized. In the case of Oak, the fibers the give it strength do not burn as well and become part of the smoke. The first time I cleaned my exhaust system I had been cutting a lot of oak plywood and it looked like black cotton balls that the fibers were obvious.

More recently I was engraving a bunch of butternut and the fibers did not even travel far but paved everywhere in front of the engraving. In the case of MDF, I think that the binder is burned but chunks of less burned nuggets travel in the smoke making much of the volume those nuggets and it is that which blocks up the filters and be they fibers or nuggets by filling the prefilter do not clog the pores of the HEPA filter.