Problems with Glowforge - Error Light

I have made ONE payment on my Glowforge and have been only using it less than a month for making engraved coasters, ornaments, etc.

I have it properly vented, follow instructions, clean the lenses and cameras, and it’s in a well ventilated area.

I turned it on today, and it kept making hard recalibrating movements every few seconds. I turned it off. Turned it back on. It wouldn’t read what was on the bed of the machine. I unplugged it and waited a bit, plugged it back in, continues to do the same thing.

I should also add that I have disconnected WiFi, turned it back on, continues to not work.

I turn it off, disconnect the head of it, reconnect, turn it back on, and it TRIES to home the head of the machine, but continues the harsh movements, making the whole machine shake, which is unsettling.

The error light came on once. I am disappointed that this machine is already giving me issues. I have maybe 20-30 hours of use on it at this time.

Please if anyone else knows how to fix this, I would appreciate it.

Also, if this is posted elsewhere on how to fix, please direct me.

Thanks.

Two things to try that are super easy: remove any material from the crumbtray (especially if it has holes in it), and reduce the amount of light entering the machine.

Both can confuse the algorithm that detects the position of the head when calibrating.

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Thanks, will try this!

Also, make sure that the lid camera is clean. That camera takes a picture of the bed, which the cloud then analyzes for the head location. It then tries to move the head towards the center, under the camera, takes another picture, and centers things based on the logo on top of the laser head. So, make sure the top of the head is pretty clean.

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Also make sure the gantry is all the way back and the head all the way to the left (do this while the machine is off). If you are still having weird noises then leave the machine off and with a cell phone take pictures of the underside of the Gantry at the point where it makes the noise, and a shot on each end of the gantry looking down to beyond it.

There was one case a while back that a loose cable was hooking on a part near the gantry and making a mess. also take a short video that includes the noise.

Post all that here and Support may be able to diagnose the situation much more quickly.

What type of error? On the screen there should be a message telling you what is happening. Some issues don’t cause the light to change color, but you’ll need to provide more detail of exactly what error message you get and the color of the light for any effective trouble shooting.

And then search the threads for that issue–I doubt it’s something that has not happened before and been corrected one way or another.

With the light coming on, it could be over heating situation. The units, especially if a basic, is very sensitive to higher ambient temperatures–and it is that time of year for it for certain areas, and high humidity only makes it worse.

If the light is not on while it’s doing what you describe, is it showing “focusing” ? Lots of causes for it to get stuck in that cycle (and lots of threads & lists for troubleshooting)–I recently ran into that and finally found one of my thin silver magnets had stuck near the head, which once removed, all worked perfectly again.

Thanks for the help everyone!

@sammie.maynard I’m sorry you ran into trouble, but I extracted your Glowforge unit’s logs to investigate, and I saw that you’ve been able to print since contacting us. That’s great!

Could you please let me know if you’re still experiencing any problems?

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.