Problems cutting out a variety of Materials. Help!

Hi,

I have had my Glowforge for about a month now. The first few items I have made turned out perfect. However, lately the cutting has been off.

The first item I made was a name tag made of wood (proofgrade medium basswood using automatic settings). The Glowforge did not finish the cut exactly where it started. I tried cutting the item twice and it did the exact same thing each time.

The next item was a name tag made of acrylic. Again, it did not finish perfectly where it began. Also, this time a tried having it cut a key hole center on the first letter. The hole was way off it almost went off the edge of the letter.

The next item I cut a Game of Thrones cake topper using acrylic. Again, it did not finish the cut where it began. I had to get knife the finish the cut so I could pop the cake topper out.

The final time, just before writing this, I engraved and cut out a tag for a teacher gift made out of wood. However, this time the machine finished the cut, BUT this time the circle and the tag are completely misshapen. (I realize my engraving setting were off. However, I only asking about the cutting being off.)

(I hope these pictures load properly. )

I am lost on how to fix these issues. Any help would be much appreciated.

Could you share your file? It is strange that the cut was exactly the same twice. That indicates to me that the file is the issue, not the Glowforge. On the other examples, I think Support is going to have to weigh in. If you share one of your files I will see how it turns out on my machine.

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I’m so sorry your prints aren’t turning out the way you expected. I’ve seen this sort of result before when there was an issue with the belts that move the printer arm or the printer head. If possible, could you please turn off your Glowforge, and take some photos of the belts inside your unit?

Specifically, we’d like to see the belts on the sides of the unit, like the one in the following photo:

It may be more difficult to tell whether there is an issue with the x-axis belt inside the printer arm based on a photograph, but could you let us know if you feel any slack in that belt, or if either of the pulleys feels loose?

Thank you in advance.

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Looking at the belts you can see that the left belt is loose. How do I go about fixing that?

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Oh yeah, your left belt is WAY loose. It’s been three days since this post, so I’m going to go ahead and post this…you need a 3mm hex wrench, turn off the machine and pull the laser arm forward to the middle or so, and you can tighten the belt here at the back …the pulley should slide back, then tighten with the wrench. Try to get about the same tension as the one on the right side:

IMG_5795

(Unless they sent you instructions via email, in which case you can ignore this.)

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I had my dad come over to take a look. He was able to tighten it. However, it isn’t nearly as tight as the right side. I am wondering if I need a new belt? I looked in their spare parts page online and don’t see that they offer belts for sale.

You could try a print and see how it works out if you are feeling brave. Or you might want to just take and post another photo…that might let the folks at GF know if the belt is too large and needs to be replaced, or if it’s going to be okay. (Actually, I’d probably do both.) :upside_down_face:

Thank you!

I did multiple cuts yesterday but I made sure to position them to the far right of the machine. I’m afraid if I position to close to the left they will end up all wonky again.

I have an email thread open with Glowforge regarding a replacement belt. We shall see.

Thanks for your patience! I just followed up in your email thread with next steps, so I’m going to close this thread. Thanks again for letting us know about this.

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