Has anyone ever experienced an issue where when you go to turn on the GF, you flip the switch and it won’t turn on, but if you unplug it and plug it back in again it turns on immediately and operates fine? I’ve had it do that both plugged directly into the wall and plugged into a power strip.
This is a refurb unit, so it may just be one of its Fun Quirks™, but I also wonder if maybe it’s a sign I have it on a circuit that’s too weak or something. Anyone got thoughts?
All I can add is I’ve never experienced that behavior.
Yeah, never had that issue. I would bet there’s a wire loose on your switch, and you should contact support about a warranty exchange.
I suspect it’s already out of warranty as it was delivered a while back - I just got back to more-than-occasional cutting after a fairly significant break after I moved last year.
Honestly it’s more annoying than anything, so if it’s not a common thing or there isn’t a simple fix, I’ll probably just keep unplugging it until a there’s a new “Performance Series” laser available. Which I realize may be a while 
If you’re at all electrically inclined, you might see if you can get a camera back there to visualize the issue, but if not, wait and see seems reasonable 
My track record of reassembling things I’ve disassembled is…poor.
If it is working otherwise, logic would say that the path to the switch was iffy. Instead of unplugging at the wall, try unplugging and replugging at the back of the machine. If that is the location of the iffy it might even work normally. I would also try just shaking the cable as unplugging and replugging accomplish that while your attention is focused on the wall.
The official word is to not use power strips with little explanation about why.
You’re not supposed to stack surge protectors, and as most power strips have them as a default…
That is weird as we had an official Florida Power & Light guy come give a talk to our Architecture office. He said that it was good to have surge protectors at some distance as they were ablative and only good for a certain number of surges and as the upstream one lowered the peak it was easier for the downstream one to squash it the rest of the way. He was noting that they needed to be (10?)feet apart to do any good.
That depending on how dirty your power was the surge protectors were useless after enough time. That was the more interesting thing I took from it.
Is it a Pro? Perhaps your safety interlock staple thingy is loose?
Nope, Basic. And for what it’s worth it definitely seems to turn back on better when I unplug it and replug it from right next to the switch.
Those cable plugs are pretty common. you might try a different or even new one from the local hardware store. And inspect the socket in the glowforge.
If there’s a loose connection it could potentially be very dangerous and cause arcing or overheating (AKA fire). If it were my machine, I’d definitely be tempted to wiggle the connector and see what happens, but there’s always a risk of that causing it to go pop.
The other possible explanation is a self-resetting fuse. There is a component that some power supplies have which cuts off the power if it’s overloaded, but is designed to cool down and reset when it’s disconnected. That also shouldn’t normally happen, and if a protection device is regularly tripping, there’s a fault that needs to be fixed and will probably get worse over time.
Both of these really spell “send it in for service” to me, but everyone has their own risk and annoyance tolerance levels.
I’m at least somewhat less worried about that given that it’s an issue turning it on, but when it runs I’ve had zero problems even if it runs for a while. Given that a new power cord is $5 in the store, I’m gonna try swapping that out first.
It’s the same as a standard desktop computer power cord if you happen to have one of those around.