More startup fail - suggestion

Problems and Support
#1

Again I got a first cut this morning and the machine has not been able to work again. very frustrating ! it was a test cut that I would have just gone with it for the second cut but there is no second cut and the alignment is gone as well without Snapmarks wrecking a nice piece of Walnut, I have emailed Support but I suppose it is too early to hear back.

Here is my great idea! As it would seem that we are working on the Cloud that is operating from Glowforge Seattle, and since the machines can do a self-check and know if something is not right Why can’t THEY contact support in real time with at least some detail of the problem, and even a help button in the GFUI that we could push that would identify all the data about what was happening, along with the notice of a problem that we could follow up with but identify the problem immediately.

That would not mean that Support would need to be responding in real time, but it would be supplying real-time data of the state of all the machines, and which ones were problematic at any moment. It would also point up any design weaknesses before we were even aware of them and where a software fix was useful, identify that as well Then when Support was able to look into a problem they could have all the data in hand and not need to spend the extra time waiting for us to try and figure what they had with more accuracy than we would.

If there is something wrong with the idea please post the discussion but if agreed please like and add a comment so they can have some feedback on it.

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#2

Support does have access to the logs of your machine - so in a way it’s doing what you want it to. It doesn’t automatically start a ticket every time someone stops a job mid-run or does something else “odd”. Often people do that for completely unrelated reasons (Eg. Oh hey, I already cut that, STOP!) or “yes I know this isn’t the material I said it was, but I’m gonna use these settings anyway”.

“Not right” is a fluid condition

Now - a Help button could be useful - that way they get the exact time-stamp for reviewing the logs as opposed to relying on our memories…though I’d like to think that if you’re having enough of an issue that you’re creating a ticket that you’d remember when it was you were having the issue.

#3

Glowforge uses Google cloud services. I don’t think they have any data centers in Washington.

#4

I have given up :frowning: I unplugged the GlowForge and put in all the Orange bits but cannot move it into the box without help.

#5

After several hours fiddling and trying not to have to file a ticket, remembering exactly the time the problem started is usually harder than you would think.

The type of Error that would be reported would not include any that you mention, but instead all the ones the machine would know and you would not, An electrical fault in one of the links or other similar issue would be what would be reported. It is just those links that are most confusing to the user,

All we get is the colored light that I beat my head against before figuring out the it had nothing to do with overheating the machine knew right away that it was a bad link at the head ribbon. now it is reported that the lid ribbon is bad but I cannot see where and the lights are acting normal so it says it is doing something like scanning or centering when it was not moving at all, that is the link to the Support I would be talking about.

#6

You know, I don’t recall a discussion about the possibility of the mother ship monitoring system malfunctions in detail. But I am missing a few post from the past six months. Some privacy and back end stuff, but routines that post common problems would be handy. The example of the ribbon not being placed correctly is an interesting idea. At the moment one might assume they only examine the logs when a support ticket is generated. But there is a tremendous amount of data being generated and with the cloud computing, this can be monetized. Of course, that is a separate issue.

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#7

The data that they should be getting could be solving or at least pointing out less than ideal design issues and thus better design results the best sort of monetization possible.

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#8

That’s exactly what I’m saying. They don’t need you to say “I started the print at 9:03 and it failed at 9:17” (though I’m sure they’d appreciate it), what they need is “I started having this issue with my 2nd print this morning” that allows them to go view the logs and narrow it down from everything you’ve ever printed to today, and the 2nd job started.

If you get the orange “oh shit” light you should be contacting support.
If your print finishes successfully despite an internal outside-of-normal response you don’t need to report anything, and they don’t need to contact you - but you can bet their QA gets copied on every error that’s noted either by a user or a system.

#9

One would have thought so but experience would indicate otherwise in terms of the questions asked.

Also when the room temps are high the orange light does come on a lot indicating overheating and one needs to proceed with that in mind and a one hour cut might take two hours in actual time with stops to cool down.

#10

Not really - a good QA starts with asking all the questions, then running background data - users do manage to come up with the most amazing bugs!!

and if you know that about the orange button then you wouldn’t want a ticket created automatically. If you didn’t, you should be asking for help. Which is exactly what I was trying (and clearly failing) to describe :slight_smile:

#11

Well again I was considering the underlying programming in which data was collected Clearly the orange light is (rather vague) notice to the user that includes many problems and it would seem ignores many others.

I can see where too much feedback might imperil competitive secrets somehow but rwports to the office not so much. Also a basic expert system could easily ignore such info as lid open or similar that are both common and easily fixed by the user while paying more attention to such issues as a bad ribbon connection or a fan not connecting which a user cannot see.

#12

I’m so sorry for the continued trouble, @rbtdanforth. Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback and observations. I’ll let the team know about these suggestions. Regarding your unit, I see that we’ve already been in contact via email to sort out the details. I sincerely apologize for the delay, and we’ll follow up shortly with next steps. Thank you again for your patience.

1 Like
#13