Not cutting through 1/8" Acrylic like it used to

Beyond the Manual
,
1

My GF Pro was cutting through my 1/8" acrylic with ease using the cut settings of 160 and full power.
I had a small fire occur during an acrylic cut last week, which resulted in me needing to replace the carriage plate. I am using a borrowed carriage plate at the moment while I wait for mine to come.
Upon installing this replacement, the first cut was like butter on 1/8" baltic birch plywood… but as I tried to do more cuts, I have notice my acrylic cuts no longer cut through and my 1/4" baltic birch cuts aren’t as smooth and clean as they were prior. I have been trying different settings, lately full power, speed 170, with 2 passes for the 1/8 acrylic and now when cutting 1/4" baltic birch I am using cut speed of 130, full power.

Would swapping the carriage plate cause this issue? This is the only new part on the machine.
I am trying to work around it as I need to make things that are being ordered, but it’s really inconvenient and frustrating and definitely a waste of my materials in some situations.
HELP!

I have cleaned all fans, lenses, etc.
One thing that I have noticed is when I try to use the “Set Focus” option I am getting the error message that I cannot set the focus. But then 2 times out of 8 it would set the focus just fine.

1 Like
2

It’s possible that the fire damaged the laser that is used to determine focus height. Try setting the material thickness in the individual step settings… not in the material selection. So where it says “material height auto”, override it there.

It would take the autofocus out of the equation.

One way to diagnose focus issues is when doing a quick score. If the line is thicker than usual then it tends to mean the focus height is wrong.

10 Likes
3

Be sure you clean all the transparent windows on the bottom. The red focus laser and head cameras are essential to focus height calculation.

Beyond that it’s a question for support@glowforge.from.

11 Likes