Hey all, my Glowforge Plus for my High School won’t do cuts, particularly proofgrade settings: I have to adjust it and it simply will not cut through anything on the first run. I’ll sometimes have to do 2 or 3 in addition. It has definitely been around the block a few times, multiple programs in my school use it and it’s for sure showing its age, but let me run through what I’ve done to try and fix it before anyone jumps in.
Cleaned laser, with wipes, etc…
cleaned out bed, made sure everything was laying flat
cleaned camera
blew air through machine
I guess my next move is to contact support and see if they can adjust it remotely or whatever. Or, worse case, purchase a new laser head. My issue there is we have a craft fair on december 18th and I don’t think there’s any way I’d get the new head before that and my production is been yanked down to an absolute crawl because of this. Thanks for any help!
There are multiple optics that need to be cleaned for best performance. There are also some fans that need to be cleaned. Once you have completed all maintenance, print the Gift of Good Measure using Proofgrade settings on Proofgrade material and share a photo. The laser tubes were believed to last around 2 years, so it is possible your tube is fading rather than the printhead.
Yeah…with that age, a few of us originals have begun to fall to the…welp…it’s dead Jim, of tube age. If it’s been fading over time and everything is clean…that sounds exactly like tube age. The power supply can fail but it’s usually sudden. Cut once and then never again or stops burning partway through a project or even a pop sound and the whole unit is just dead.
The first production machines started shipping in late 2017.
The original expected lifespan for the tube was 2 years but they tended to last longer. Mine - received Dec 2017 - started to fail early last year. So ~ 5 1/2 years. The tube will fail even with light use, which described mine. Just a handy tool for personal use.
The tube is not replaceable by the user, the entire machine needs to be replaced, often swapped out for a refurbished machine, but lately they have been simply selling new ones at a discount.