Take the scam risk off the table. Throw that part away. Then consider the following:
Older lady who used to run a business with Glowforge plus is selling her non working printer and lots of wood for just $300.
She states that it worked when “she stopped using it” but now it won’t power on. She gave me the serial number and I emailed support to make sure it’s not stolen.
She says her house is too small for it and she can’t fix it/use it because it brings way too much dust in and it’s taking up way too much space…
The non working issue is it won’t come on/turn on at all. Not sure what all she has tried.
I need to work out more details like: how old the machine is and how long it’s been sitting.
My question is; Would you make this investment to get this printer up and running? No cosmetic issues. The machine appears to be in good shape.
I know I will likely have to replace the co2 tube which is $500.
What if it’s the power supply? How much is that?
Take me down the list of possibilities. Will this be a money pit?
Would I be dumb not to buy it? Or dumb to try it?
I do not have a performance series printer, just the little Aura. I have always always always wanted a real glowforge.
Replacing the tube for $500 is not currently possible, to my knowledge.
There are parts in the non working Glowforge that have value - the mirror, lens, carriage plate, printhead and they can be sold individually. Maybe you sell them and put the money toward a working machine.
If you are not very skilled at electronic repairs, I don’t think this is a good buy. There are lots of used working Glowforge Performance printers available which I think are better options.
One other thing to consider is that GF the company gives signes that they may be in poor financial shape. They recently had a failed attempt at an IPO and difficulty raising funds. There was also a few rounds of layoffs recently with a sizeable reduction in the workforce.
Given the nature of the GlowForge ecosystem (their cloud / servers are essential for one’s print to get from the UI to the forge). If they go under, our machines may no longer work (or might work but it will cost us something to make it happen). So, there is an added risk to consider.
I wouldn’t expect you to need to replace the tube - but the cost for that, and the cost if the power supply is dead is the same - about $1700 for a refurbished unit.
OTOH, if “lots of wood” comes pretty close to $300 worth of it, then I’d do it knowing that you’d have backup parts for you machine (or you could sell them piecemeal).
If you would pay more than that for the wood, then the machine is a bonus. If she exchanged it fror a refurb machine it might run as much as 2k (probably less) and she could have the refurb sent to you noting that you were buying it. The Aura will do the lighter work that technically the bigger machines have trouble with while the larger more complex stuff can be done with them that the Aura cannot touch. I would not worry much about an ecosystem crash. If you intend to sell your work and have a mechanism to do that you will likely more than break even just in the increased value of the wood (if there is that much of it)
I have a bunch of mostly exotic wood but need light maple plywood much more than I have. But if I had a market for boxes out of exotic wood I would be set. So there is that also.