My glowforge seems to have moisture and mold and I don’t want to turn It on to see if it works, because I don’t want to damage it. During the week days I work so I turn off my AC and it sits there in the corner, well yesterday I went to clean it before using and I saw moisture and mold in the corner, so I unplugged it and up the lid to air out. I don’t know what to do now.
First time I’ve seen that. Do you live in a really high humidity area?
Wow. Do you keep the vent hose connected to an outside outlet without any kind of blast gate?
It has been documented before that leaving wood materials on the bed in high humidity conditions with a venting setup that remains open to high humidity outside air will cause warp.
Would imagine that mold would grow to in a situation like this.
A challenge to clean for sure.
I live in Florida and it’s humidity is ridiculous
I tried reaching back there and it’s a challenge, I used my heat gun on low and tried drying any liquid that might be there. Next I’m going to let it sit then try turning it on
Uh-oh. (I’m Houston, i know the gig.)
I’d recommend disconnecting the tube from the exterior port when the machine is not in use. Whether that’s from a blast gate or flaps or just disconnecting it. What you’re getting is hot exterior air coming into the machine, rising up and condensing when it hits the cooler machine. And it’s condensing inside the machine.
Normally, they tell us not to introduce any more bends into the hose than is absolutely necessary, but a slight bend in the hose before it enters the machine may help. It will cause any condensation to form in the hose, not the machine. (I’m gonna show a picture of my setup, and it does include dryer flaps on the outside to slow down the hot air entering the hose. That might be enough to do it if you don’t have them.)
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Thanks I’ll definitely try that setup. Thanks for the help.
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Oh no! I’m sorry to hear about the mold trouble.
Thanks for all the thoughtful feedback on this issue folks. I agree, in high humidity areas the hose should be sealed when not in use.
You can read more about this in the Glowforge Manual
Once you are sure that all the moisture has been removed, you can power it on and try a test print. Please let us know how it goes.
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In the Free Designs section, @DaveStruve was gracious enough to share his design for a glowforge-mounted blast gate which I found to be significantly better than ones that can be purchased.
Here’s a link to that design:
https://community.glowforge.com/t/glowforge-mounted-blast-gate/27696
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It’s been a little while since I’ve seen any replies on this thread so I’m going to close it. If you still need help with this please either start a new thread or email support@glowforge.com.