Panicking with 2 Pro's down and $1000 open Etsy Orders, cry for help near Nashville TN!

I am beside myself panicking, my fine lasering friends. I have 2 glowforge Pros to run my ornament business. Everything was fine monday but now within 48 hours, both machines have failed- I am desperate for any ideas or help, heres my situation:

  • I have a 45 minute cut I need to do today (thursday 10/23) in order to avoid refunding/canceling $1000 of orders (just missing the last little personalized piece to go on 45 different ornaments before I can ship them.)
  • Laser one had the failed camera capture error. I changed the black lid cable, it was fixed and cutting perfect, a few days later it happened again and cant start a print. Support today said “sorry contact a third party service because we cant do repairs right now”.
  • Laser two has been perfect but a few hours ago I went to finish orders and it has just completely stopped firing. Like the printer head is moving totally normal, but the laser tube has zero firing. The mirror is perfect, undamaged, everything is clean, all the normal checks & balances are good so I fear I have lost power supply to the tube or something.
  • Does anyone live anywhere near Nashville, that I could pay to come laser my 45 minute project on your laser? I will drive wherever, I am so desperate to not have to cancel or refund my Etsy orders because Etsy is so cutthroat about shipping late that I can get my shop banned. I have just been sitting here sobbing for 2 hours trying to get either one of my lasers to function and it’s just not happening. Funnily (or stupidly) enough I actually purchased a Pro HD this morning before my second machine went down, so I will have that new one here next week, but it will be too late then for the 45 orders due thursday/friday- I of course would be happy to save someone else in a similar jam if they needed in the future. I am in Franklin, Tennessee.

If anyone more experienced here has “off warranty” repair ideas I can check in the ribbons/guts past what ive already troubleshot, I would be eternally thankful for your thoughts!

It’s not the answer you need, because I’m no where near Nashville, but do you have a library with a maker space near you? Or even a maker space. I googled it and there are a few that pop up in the Nashville area, though I’m not sure if you can use them without a membership:

https://makenashville.org/

Looks like the Nashville Public library has maker equipment, though it might only be 3D printers. Seems like some local schools have one, but I don’t know how you would get permission to use those.

This library has one, but I’m not sure how far it is from Nashville:

Good luck. How old is the Glowforge that moves but doesn’t cut? Have you tried another file like the gift of good measure? Sometimes, if it’s an engrave anyways, there could be a duplicate file on top of the original that interferes with operations, it will cancel out the engrave but go through all the motions. I don’t think it will do that for a cut though.

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I was also going to mention checking any public libraries with a Glowforge for public use close to you.

Joann stores may also have Glowforge for public use in the store, so that may be another lead to help.

You most likely checked the lid cable connections, including the white lid camera cables, for troubleshooting. Without access to the printer’s log files, I cannot do a deeper dive, but I would double-check the lid cable connections to ensure they’re not seated at an angle or become loose. When you check those, also take a look at the circuit board that connects to the middle black lid cable; if you notice dark spots on it, that could be the cause.

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Thanks so much for your help, the library you linked is only an hour away, but requires you to take a saturday safety class (even if you’re an expert user/owner) and the class has a several hundred person waitlist so it doesn’t sound like that will have a quick resolution lol. I checked the 2 Joannes that have one but they are both 4 hours away and have no one trained to use them. They have sat there unused because they have internet connection issues in addition to staff turn over/no one knowing how to use it. The local maker labs don’t have glowforge (just more industrial/reliable lasers) and I would also have to get approved for membership first, with more waitlists in the way there as well.

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Thanks so much for that Brandon. Library has a huge wait list for their required safety class and Joann was a failed option too. After 6 more hours invested in tech support today, the other laser (that lost power to the tube) was deemed an electrical failure and I was offered a trade-in discount to purchase a brand new machine. I have vertigo dizziness from how many failure laser have come in and out of my space within such a short time!

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