I’ve submitted a support ticket, but posting here in case anyone has bright ideas.
Using GF basic, was all working fine until just stopped in the middle of a print with a yellow button.
Cleaned everything and switched off/on as per all the usual help instructions, but now the head won’t center. When it tries to center, the laser carriage moves up and down correctly, but the head just bumps against the left hand side. Oddly, if I manually position the head under the camera, I can convince it to think it’s centered, but then after that, the head just weaves back to the middle and it will start printing at this point, but it then thinks that the middle is the left hand side.
I don’t fully understand what you’re describing, but I suspect the problem is not user-serviceable, as they say. Nevertheless, here are a few things just in case:
As you probably know, the centering routine works by the software looking for the Glowforge logo on top of the print head, and then estimating the direction and distance it needs to move to bring it under the camera. This can be foiled if:
The top of the print head is dirty, obscuring the logo
There’s material in the machine that confuses the image recognition algorithm
There’s a lighting issue - outside light shining in, or interior light failure
The symptom of the print head bumping along the side resembles what can happen when the software gets confused about where it is, so that’s why I bring that up.
Another possibility is that there’s a problem with a belt that’s preventing it from moving correctly. Have you checked the tension, and made sure there’s no debris on the rails? Inspected the wheels for damage? Does it move smoothly by hand? By the way: never move it while the machine is on.
If it’s neither of those, it starts looking more like a motor/electrical/control fault, which is going to require a repair.
