Is there a power governor on the Glowforge?

I know running a CO2 laser at 100% of its rated power is bad for the tube’s lifespan and I typically either throttle mine back to 95% or less or I have it set in the configuration file for the laser not to exceed 95%. Is the GF cloud doing that for us? Can I safely use 100% for power without abnormally shortening its lifespan or should I keep to 95% as my max input value for that?

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I’ve been using 90/25 for most of the plywoods (including PG) and it cuts through just fine without all the underburn. (What do they call that anyway? Is it flashback or blowback?)

If I had any hardwood, I’d probably just use the suggested settings Rita sent us.

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Thats a good question, Id like to know as well. Theres no way to know until @dan and co specify. I would hope they are accounting for that and not giving us access to the max power where it would start burning out the gas, but no one has said anything about it, so maybe he will swing by and clue us in. This definitely needs to be known before real units start to ship

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I’m using the 100/27 they recommended.

I call it flashback btw.

Right now I’m okay using 100 because it’s their tube I’m burning and I figured maybe they want to see what the effect is on it when they get it back and can do some physical analysis. But I do want to know before I get my own tube.

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same. never heard it called blowback til I saw someone say it on this forum. they probably just got their words mixed up

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exactly

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Of course 100 is 100 arbitrary units. We don’t know what 100 translates to in terms of power. If 100 really equals max power that doesn’t kill the tube, then we are all happy. It’s like the 11 in spinal tap…

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100 placeboids please

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I did my first week or two of cuts at the full 100% power, but on the off chance that we get the option* to just keep these, I’d rather not burn it out. (We’ve gotten to know each other now.) :smile:

And I was still getting some flashback at full power.

*(That option hasn’t been offered. The PR units still belong to Glowforge.)

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It would be nice if we could turn the pew up to 11.

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I have a Pro on order. :grinning:

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That makes a difference…I’ve just got a Basic. :wink:

being that a screw fell out of it last night on the bottom, pretty sure I will want a production unit…

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I had an extra screw rattling around in my M2…that kind of thing can happen, even with production units.

These haven’t been offered to us anyway, so no need to change whatever you’re doing. They gave us the settings to use.

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Yours came with screws? Lucky dog

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Blowflash?

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Blowfish? :blowfish:

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Jules! You should totally make us a spiky blowfish on your glowforge!

Ooo! It could be a little 3d snap-together thing that fits around a lightbulb so that it’s a light-up blowfish! A Glowfish, even!

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If enough things fall off do you end up with 2 Glowforges?

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I should try the 100/25. I’ve had such good success with my initial settings I haven’t wanted to change up. I haven’t gotten any different instructions. But there was a big upgrade today and my engraving settings are way different. Very, very low power on 1% with a bitmap engrave.

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