Before:
Gunk buildup is starting to get smudge marks on my materials, which just won’t do.
During:
This was the water after I scrubbed it with soap.
This was the third rinse. Wash and scrub with soap, then fresh water and scrub again in clear water, then rinse a third time. This is the junk that still came out. Nasty.
After:
A bit blurry, but oh well.
hehe it almost looks like you have been grilling steaks on it.
Baltic birch mostly. Leaves a really gross residue.
Take a few hours and engrave the entire crumb tray?
I used a wire brush made for barbecue and did a decent job in the upper reaches.
It’s like you don’t even know how impatient I am with engraves.
This process takes 20 minutes to clean, and I use a high power blower to knock the water off. It’s dry within 30 mins.
I’ve actually considered getting a backup tray so I can swap them and uncouple the cleaning process from my laser, would reduce downtime.
How many Glowforges have you gone through? And how many crumb trays? I forget that sometimes but I get reminded by the laser pass on the lip of the crumb tray from my first day trying it out. (it was before I realized about the divots the feet are supposed fall into, and first impression that piece was metal. I mean who would put plastic where the laser might cut?
When I was having trouble with the head fan I set it to engrave the front so I could watch what was happening to the fan. Even 100-1 power does a nice job of cleaning.
This is my replacment glowforge, but when you get a new machine, you keep your old tray, so this is my original tray.
I clean it whenever it gets gross, which is about every 1-3 months depending on how much cutting I’ve been doing.
Holy cow, really? Wow, I’ve never cleaned mine really. I might have emptied it a few times, and I think once I went after it with a wire brush. You’ve never seen any rust on it? I think I saw a picture once of rust on one where they had dunked it in simple green or something like that (but simple green is way too valuable these days to fill up a tub big enough to soak the tray, so that’s out).
Nope. I think the key is to dry it asap.
I use a high powered dog dryer to blast the water off it, but a standard air compressor would work well too… maybe even better.
If at all possible, leave it in the sun to finish drying., though I have also setup a small fan indoors to blow it dry when the weather wasn’t cooperating. No issues.
LOL! How about a leaf blower?
I dunno, might work? The dog dryer blows very concentrated air at high speed, just knocks the water right off it.
Like this:
Wow, that is a GOOD DOG! My German shepherd would run the minute something like that was pointed at him (and not come back like that one did). I used to vacuum my old German shepherd though, he didn’t mind it. Was very helpful during coat blowing season 
I may give cleaning mine a shot, although I don’t think it’s terribly bad yet. Any chance to annoy the neighbors with my noise is ok with me. The return of the warmer weather has reminded me how much I don’t miss the constant leaf blowing and lawn mowing that goes on around here, with all the weekend warriors using those extra loud backback blowers.
Heh my boys (goldens) are perfectly fine with it. You just gotta stay away from ears eyes mouths and butts, these things put out a lot of air and could hurt them.
I routinely give the boys “air baths” between baths to knock all the loose fur off them, seems like that’s what was happening in this video too.
oddly, I cleaned mine today aw well. I was not nearly as into it. NO disassembly, Hosed it down with simple green, let it stand, rinsed it. The amount of gunk that came off was impressive enough to merit a 2nd pass. Still ugly vs yours but much cleaner.
Disassembly is pretty easy. 9 screws total, you just need torx bits.
we used to use one at the dog wash in the winter on our old mastiff/bloodhound mix. he was the same way, stay away from the head. i used to drape a towel over his head and pay attention to him while my wife used the blow dryer on the rest of him. catch his face with some air and the jig was up. he spent the rest of the time trying to angrily eat the end of the dryer hose.
now, with a dane, she has so little fur that a good towel off and she’s pretty much dry by the time we walk back to the truck. not that she needs baths that often. there are some benefits to minimal fur.
After inspection, It was still dirty so, I went whole hog on it today. There was enough crud in some of the cells that I had to use a small brush to clean out the holes. it is not perfect but way way better. Took the opportunity while it dried to remove the nasty fan that was acting as a pre-filter for my external fan (i.e. covered in crud). That led to me flossing the heat exchanger with simepl green safety wipes and vacuuming up a bunch of crumbs. It is all back together and working now so all is well that ends.
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