Proofgrade settings do not work - have tested many proofgrade materials

Community Support
1

Tonight, I had yet another failed print caused with proofgrade settings resulting in cuts that did not make it through my proofgrade medium cherry plywood. I attempted to print the metric gift of good measure at 11:25 PM Pacific on Feb 28, 2018.

When using proofgrade materials, I find that in order for cuts to make it through materials, I have to consistently reduce speed by at least 20. Is my laser losing power? Not something that I would expect given that I’ve only had it for ~1.5 months.

My materials are flat and I generally use magnets to hold down materials. This has been replicated on the following proofgrade materials:

medium cherry plywood
medium maple plywood
medium draftboard
medium acrylic (both clear and frosted)
medium walnut plywood

It seems like others are also experiencing this problem.

Could someone from Glowforge support help me diagnose this? Also, I have outstanding threads related to excessive smoke emanating from my machine. I wonder if my Glowforge Pro is defective.

Please respond.

2

Are your windows, mirrors and lens clean? I ask because if the smoke is not being extracted probably they might fog up very quickly. Also the beam has to travel through any smoke above the carriage and that will attenuate it.

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3

Yes. They have been throughly cleaned using the Zeiss wipes. The Gift of Good measure doesn’t produce a lot of smoke, so I doubt that it’s attenuation. The cuts are consistently not making it through the material. If it were attenuation, I would expect some variability in the cut depth.

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Thank you for the clear report. I am, unfortunately, recommending that we replace your Glowforge – I’ve replied to your email.