Finally, I got a working Glowforge unit and it finished the first keychain tutorial. But, the circles were not cut through unlike the other things are nicely cut. What could cause this kind of issue? It cuts the boundary seamlessly but not the circles. And the lines are not clearly engraved on the front side.
Give me some ideas.
Did you have to push that left side out at all? Looks like it may have had a little spot where you might have had to push it out, and seeing as how the right side circles were cut out, makes me wonder how flat the material might have been? I can see the circles were pretty close to cutting through since they have a few marks/holes where it did go through, but they get progressively less as you go left in the design.
I’m curious about the marks I’ve circled below
Those marks aren’t part of the design.
Also, the score marks seem to get fainter/more broken on the left side of the design. That part uses a HQ score, I believe which is a slow score at low power. Since it’s such a low power, it’s very susceptible to the focus being accurate.
Thank you for sharing your ideas. First of all the red circled marks were done by my previous Glowforge model, which was not working from the first time and stopped during engraving the marks. So, never mind the weird marks. the material was flat and I had to push the two small circles to remove them and the back side has minor damage caused by pushing forcefully. But, the oblong part was perfect.
I find that the 
settings are right at the edge of perfect which means that any issue will end up short of that perfection when the preference would be a hair over perfection than under.
Making that piece is the universal standard so good to do the test and call their attention but in normal cutting, I have clicked on the “>” just to the right of the setting and making sure it is not reset to 0 and max speed just knock the speed down 30 and you will be at the other side of perfect but it will be a nice clean cut. 
I’m so sorry that your first print didn’t come out beautifully! Thank you to our other community members who have already provided some advice.
To cut successfully, there are three important things to check. First, your material must lie flat. This requires a properly installed crumb tray and flat materials. Second, there must be no obstructions or damage preventing the laser light from reaching your material. Third, your design must be set up properly - for example, with lines that are fully on the material and that are set to cut. It’s hard to know which issue might be affecting your print, but if you follow the instructions in the cut-through troubleshooter, we’ll be able to get to the bottom of it.
Once you’ve finished your inspection, please try another print. We included an extra piece of Proofgrade Draftboard with the shipment of your materials for troubleshooting. Please print the Gift of Good Measure on that Proofgrade Draftboard and let me know the result. If it doesn’t print well, please let me know the date and time of your print, send photos of the front and back of the print and we’ll advise on next steps.
Hi @zetzlyj, did you get a chance to look over those troubleshooting steps that Ivan posted? If you have and you are still having trouble cutting through, please let us know and we will look into this further. Thanks!
Hi Kathan,
I haven’t tested on the proofgrade materials, but I am actually going to use other materials. For example, I am testing and learning how to work with 1/8 inch plywood. Since the plywood requires higher power, I needed to set as full power and 3 passes to cut the plywood.
BTW, I checked that the material is flat and the tray was placed on the right spot, and no obstructions. But, it was not cutting the proofgrade material. And I wonder that If it doesn’t nicely work on the proofgrade materials, is there any way to improve this device power? Or does it mean that this device needs any service? Just for curiosity.
Thanks for your remind.
You shouldn’t. Eighth should be single pass cuts. Is your lens in the correct side up? Have you cleaned the mirror under the left side? Are you using the Set Focus tool?
Really? What speed and power are you using for 1/8 plywood?
I just tell it I’ve got PG Medium Maple Ply in there. Works great for Baltic Birch plywood.
What kind of plywood are you using?
You might make yourself a few of these to test out whatever woods you have.
@zetzlyj, running a test on Proofgrade material will provide a baseline which will let us check to see if your unit is having any trouble cutting through material which we’ve tested with known settings. Once you’ve run the test, please take photos of the front and back of the result and let us know if it didn’t perform as expected.
If there’s any trouble with the results, we’ll investigate. Thank you!
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.
