Losing alignment during print, squares not joining up at the corners

[sqw]

I am finding some jobs are losing the place somewhere during the print itself.
You can see in the photo, the rectangle has closed off about 1mm out.
The difference is always about 1mm. It is always front to back, never side to side.
It doesn’t happen every time, just frequently enough to be annoying.
It’s not the material moving, this still happens when it is fully pinned and taped down.
Running the same job again will work fine - which makes thing I’ve got a bit of muck, or a stripped gear or something somewhere.
I’ve cleaned the belts and the runners on the sides.

Before I get into a serious take apart to clean everything does anybody have any suggestions?

[beerfaced]

Your photo is missing.

[sqw]

Doh!! Uploaded it now

[deirdrebeth]

It looks like one of your belts is either catching or slipping - which one would depend which direction that was facing when it cut oddly!

With the machine off slide back and forth and see if you can figure out where it’s messing up!

[sqw]

I guess since it is coming up short on the move towards the back it must be slipping on something, though belts feel quite tight. Moving it by hand powered off, I can’t feel anything awry.

[jeremyh]

Oh no, I’m sorry to hear about the trouble @sqw.

To help our team take a deeper look, I’d like to look over a few things.

First, would you please send me the following photos? Power off your Glowforge and remove the crumb tray.

1. The belt under your laser arm with the head pushed to the left:
​

​
2. The pulley under the laser arm on the right side from the front:

3. The right side pulley under the laser arm from underneath:
​

Next, could you run a test print for me? The design we use has some known dimensions built into it and it will help me extract logs afterward to take a closer look.

• Print the Gift of Good Measure on Proofgrade material, using Proofgrade settings.

• When the print finishes, leave the lid closed and wait until the fans stop and the picture updates

• If the Gift of Good Measure fails to cut as expected, take a photo of the front and back of the print and attach these photos to your reply.

Send us the above information and we’ll take a deeper look!

Attachments

[sqw]

I have given everything a serious clean, all the wheels, belts etc. Things seem to be ok at the moment. Will re-open if it starts again.