Wondering if it’s normal for the led’s on the two light strips to burn out?
I already contacted support and they are sending me replacement strips.
I have 5 out on the left side and 3 on the right and the machine is only 7 months old.
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Never read about that happening, I guess it is not as common as the black ribbon cable problem.
Glad Support is on your case.
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Yeah, it’s not unheard of. I use Addressable LED strips and losing an LED on one of them happens every once in a while. If you lose one, you usually lose more since the LEDs are all likely to be from the same manufacturing lot, and early failures are always due to manufacturing defects.
Ideally, they ought to last for 10000s of hours. Much longer than a bulb would last (though brightness declines with age and an LED is considered “used up” when it fades to around 70% of its original brightness). But they don’t last 100x longer than a light bulb. So if you have 100x LEDs, statistics suggests you could expect to see one LED fail about as often as a single lightbulb would fail.
You see a lot of older cars with individual LED matrix type brake lights where a couple of LEDs are burned out…
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One thing that could cause the LED light to burn out is spraying a cleaner directly into the machine, such as glass cleaner. You likely already know that the best way to apply cleaner to the glass is to spray a pad of towel (paper or cloth) then clean the glass, being careful not to get the cleaner on the electronics.
For what it is worth, I’ve found it easiest to start glass cleaning with a simple dish soap and water washcloth that has been wrung out to remove most of the moisture. After the main gunk is gone, I’ll hit it up with rubbing alcohol or carefully wipe down with glass cleaner. Windex is pretty caustic to electronics, and could definitely kill some LEDs!
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Thank you for the tip. I probably did get too much cleaner on the strips, but I always let the inside dry out a few hours after I clean it, before I start running in again, just to make sure it’s dry inside.
Glowforge did send me replacement strips and I will install them once I have a few more lights burned out.
Steve
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It’s less about whether the cleaner has evaporated before you power things, and more about what the cleaner chemicals are and where they go when you apply them. Not everything electronic is hermetically sealed. You get a liquid solvent inside the component, it’s going to do damage that remains once the solvent has evaporated. You can’t uncrack an egg, as they say.
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