My Glowforge seems to be working fine (perfectly cutting thick acrylic) but it always stops after one cut. The counter in the app keeps counting down but nothing else is happening and the head remains in the same position without firering. Canceling the job on in the app stops the fans but doesn’t move the head back home.
I’ve seen suggestions about adusting/cleaning the Glowforge & mirror but that’s clearely not related as it perfectly cuts the first part :
I there a reason you have such complex polygons vs. simple paths? The main outline has almost 1,500 nodes when converted to a path. I suspect that is playing a part in why it’s not printing succesfully.
I see it was created in Illustrator, perhaps someone can tell you how to covert it to paths.
Most of my designs are 3D (modelled in Blender) that are then converted to SVG, resulting in paths with a lot of points.
I doubt that this is the problem though as it has worked for years like that but you can see the outline cuts out perfectly but everything stops right after that.
Even if I print a simple 4 node square I’m getting the same result. There are other posts in the forum about this but they usually get closed after the typical "check/clean your mirror/vents nonsense reply
I have simplified the SVG in Illustrator now (attached)
and I’ll try again …
It makes no difference : No matter what I throw at it (big or small, 1000s of points or just a couple) it just stops after one object. Here you can see it do a dual cut of one section and then it stops :
As you can see the cut is perfect so it’s not mirror (or whatever) related …
I’ve submitted a report to support. I was just wondering if someone here had seen a solution pass by over the years as there are multiple ‘printer stops cutting mid print’ in here as well.
I think the Glowforge does some kind of check in between objects, detects some kind of error and goes into failsafe mode.
I’ve taken it outside and blown it out completely with my air compressor to see if that helps but it’s exactly the same.
The only reason I remember the machine pausing as you say is when it overheats - and that’s generally not going to be perfectly times to stop after the first step.
Support can check the logs to see what the machine is doing, and check for error messages in them.
Support doesn’t monitor this forum, so you will get more help by either calling them at 1-855-338-2122 or sending them a message at support@glowforge.com.
Support is checking things out but I’ll document the whole thing here for future reference.
I’m doing the complete project in 30 minute steps now on a piece of proofgrade thick acrylic, that worked perfectly before as wou can see, cutting one step at the time.
Here I’m cutting (2 passes) the big outline, which works perfectly until it has to switch to the next step :
Here it is cutting a small circle. The cut is perfect but the machine goes into some kind of failsafe mode and has to be turned off for 20-30 minutes before it’ll power on again :
Here I’m cutting the 2nd small circle :
… after which it goes into some kind of failsafe again.
Here are the next steps, each time turning off the machine for 30 minutes :
The confusing thing with support(from long read experience when support used to have an active channel on this forum) is they can say the WiFi and use that as a catch all term for the entire data stream from your web browser to the servers back to your laser.
It’s been long proven the WiFi chips are some of the cheapest they could have gotten. It’s also been relatively surmised that there is no data redundancy checks. They send the data as a stream like a video or audio would be instead of double checked like a loading webpage.
So if there’s a drop in connection or data packets get lost or arrive out of order, things go wrong™.
So it very well could be somewhere/anywhere between your laser and the google servers glowforge runs off of and all they can see is, the servers sent it, your laser didn’t receive it(or the laser requested data and the server never gets the request) and the only control you have is over the WiFi network.
It was a long ago complaint that there is no physical hookup for Ethernet but they’ve stuck to WiFi only.
I had something similar happen. I tried everything I could think of with no luck. I have the air filter system, and I finally tried changing the air filter (even though I was pretty certain it wasn’t ready to be changed). For whatever reason, the problem stopped after I put the new filter in.
That is typical of the overheating issue that is not uncommon and causes similar symptoms – but not identical - to what the OP described. The air filter is really for machines that see very little use.
This machine was intended for crafting, to open up the world of laser cutting and engraving to people who are used to things like vinyl cutters. It’s not designed for technical people, so no technical concessions were intended.
