Length of electrical cord?

I looked in the FAQs and did not see an answer to this. I would like to know how
long the cord to the Glowforge is, please? It will have bearing on placement. Thank you

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I have no idea the cord length, but surely you could use an extension cord were it necessary.

High power draw devices are advised to only use extension cords in temporary setups. Once you have a permanent location you are always advised (by proper electrical code) to install a permanent outlet in range of the normal cord.

Each plug connection is a failure point, and adds to overall fire risk. Poorly made extension cords will heat excessively near the plug location, any extension cord has the connection point as an added location where water can connect to live terminals, and many other fringe cases I have never thought of yet.

Minimal connections is always desired (only because of sanity and cost does code not recommend hard wiring all major appliances)

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I have only one outlet in my little to-be Glowforge room in the back of my 90 year old house. I was planning on connecting it into a powerstrip plugged into that outlet…no other extension cords. My brother, rightly so, asked me to question this plan. No time like the present. Is the Glowforge considered to be a high power draw machine? And aside from going directly into the outlet, would you consider it safe to plug into the power strip?

I can’t answer the question but here is context on power usage:

Very helpful. Thank you. I’ve bookmarked that page and will ask my son-in-law who will have an answer for my question using this information.

I asked Dan about the wattage draw a while back. If you have the filter, it about maxes out a standard 1500w outlet. I forget the breakdown but I think he said it was 800w for the GF and 600w for the laser.

Thank you. I believe your post is on the voltage support page that marmak3261 referred me to. I will have no filter with mine.

That’s right. I don’t know the length of the included cord, but it’s an IEC power cord so it’s easily replaceable with a longer one.

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Looks like a 12ft 15Amp rated IEC power cord is under $20 on Amazon. Use an extension cord until you see what length and guage GF ships with. Then order a replacement if necessary.

Watts = Volts x Amps. A typical outlet in a US home is wired into a circuit of 110v and 15 amps. That means it should supply 1650 Watts. If the glowforge and filter are drawing 1400 Watts at peak power, then 1) you will want a quality extension cord and 2) either a quality power strip or maybe a UPS - something whose purpose is to protect your glowforge from power surges. Note: if you have a glowforge drawing 1400 Watts, then you can’t really have anything else turned on and using that circuit or the breaker will trip/fuse will blow. Remember, there may be other outlets wired into the circuit, in other rooms, your glowforge is using so this may provide the excuse to switch over to LED room lighting. Running the exhaust out a window may be a necessity for some.

I believe what Dan meant by IEC power cord is that it is what is also known as a PC power cord or a power cord with an IEC C13 connector to the glowforge. A 15ft 14AWG cord is $7.74 at monoprice and a 24ft 14AWG cord is $12.59. The 14AWG provides a rating of 15amps and 125V, or a very safe 1400 Watts. If the filter and glowforge use separate power cords, then you could safely downgrade to 16AWG or 18AWG and they’re even cheaper.

Of course, if you have a fuse box instead of circuit breakers all you really need is a supply of pennies (just kidding!)

Does anyone know where on the glowforge the power supply is wired? The thing is nearly a meter long so right side versus left side will also factor into determining shop placement.

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Anecdote: My brother called me to diagnose a problem with the refrigerator in his 90 year old house. I traced the problem to a electrical junction box between floors. The upstairs floor was noticeably warm to the touch at the location of the box. The wire connections had corroded and were heating up. Fixed the box and tried to get him to have the house rewired. (I’m an Electrical Engineer not an electrician) The house burned down 2 years later from an electrical surge due to lightning.

Moral of the story: If your house is old, have the wiring inspected. The GF Basic uses less than a typical toaster but then I’ve seen houses that should never have a toaster.

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One outlet in the back room is mildly promising for the chance to be on a breaker all alone (well, maybe with the light in the room). So that is good. I would advise checking to see if the outlet has a proper ground (outlet testers are pretty easy to find and fairly cheap, you might know someone who owns one you can borrow for free). A proper ground will be pretty important.

Other than that, all of the advice on here seems to have covered anything you can possibly need. I suppose further on the breaker rating issue would be to say that it is trivial to swap out a breaker with a higher rating. Considerably cheaper than re-wiring your house to include an extra breaker. Though many people have a few unused breaker slots in their panel, so having a dedicated breaker will be rather trivial (don’t do it yourself if you aren’t experienced though. Building code violations into your house makes it a pain to sell. And that whole “you can kill yourself if you don’t understand what you are doing” thing)

Fantastic wealth of information here and I thank you all. Yes…it should be enough to solve the power question. The smartest thing for me to do might be to have an electrician come in and add another outlet. In this way, it’s a good thing that the Glowforge won’t be here anytime soon. I’m having to prepare more than one might think.

Gotta be careful about swapping out for a higher amperage breaker. If they only used 14ga wire to wire up the circuit, you probably shouldn’t put a 20 amp breaker on that circuit. But I’ve seen some electricians wire up with all 12ga and then throw a 15amp breaker on the circuit - so in that case “you” could swap it for a 20amp and be fine.

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I recently built a wood shop in my garage. I added a 60 amp panel and some 15 and 20 amp circuits. I’ll be plugging my Glowforge into a 20 amp circuit - and will most likely have nothing else running on the circuit while I’m running the laser.

The earlier suggestion that you have your wiring checked is a good one. If you know what you’re doing, adding a dedicated 15 or 20 amp outlet for the Glowforge would be ideal. (If you don’t know what you’re doing - contact an electrician). If you add outlets, have the electrical work inspected. Don’t take risks with this.

I recall Dan saying that the Glowforge uses a standard PC power cord, you can find them in various lengths if the stock one isn’t long enough. I would guess the stock cord will be 5 or 6 feet long.

This oughtta do it, huh? :smile:


(this is the right link)

Longer than my house, so yeah.

Ooops - fixed.

At 50’, I could wire it directly into my breaker panel! :smiley: