Preordered in September 2015. Two pre-release units in early 2017. I received my production unit in August 2017. Warranty replacement with refurb exactly one day before the warranty expired. 
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I ordered late in Aug, 2017 received Feb 2, 2018, had many issues that I now trace almost all to not realizing about Magnets. Warranty Replacement after Christmas 2018, Was a mixup that I sent Pro but got back Basic so Pro arrived Feb 2, 2019.
Since then, only one black ribbon of death and one mysterious crash.
Of some note the difficulties of running then and now are amazingly easier and more accurate now,
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Pre-release in '17 my own after that and no problems to date. Heavy use initially but that has tapered in the last year. The learning experience and the fun I have had easily makes it one of the best purchases I ever made.
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I received one of the first production machines (vs a beta machine) 4 yrs ago and went through three of them pretty quickly, but at least one issue (probably two) were pretty basic things that had an easy fix, but the feeling I had was GF wanted to see the machine first hand to study what the problem was. (One was a loose camera housing, and I think one was basically a dirty fan or something along those lines.) I’ve had my current machine maybe 3 yrs-ish, and I won’t comment about the lack of issues because I don’t want to jinx it. I didn’t mind going through the other machines because GF would immediately send out a replacement without waiting for the return and it was pretty seamless, and they were pretty generous in compensating me for the hassle.
If you’re curious about reliability etc, something to keep in mind is us folks from 2017 will cause a bit of a distorted look at current reliability because the odds of the first few hundred machines being faulty is obviously much more likely than it is now, and I don’t know how comparable the stats would be.
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Had a pre-release from Feb to Nov 2017. Worked as advertised until the company said I couldn’t keep it. Got my production Pro in early Nov 2017. No problems, no power degradation, no temperature issues, no stuck in calibration, no camera issues, no air assist warnings, no bumps, no lid warnings. Lost connectivity once during a blizzard. Coincidentally my internet went down for 12 hours at that exact same time. Weird.
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Since Feb 2018
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Five:
- Stuff on the right side of the bed wouldn’t print correctly
- My camera focus got really bad
- I started getting an “air assist” error that wouldn’t quit happening
- Some sort of network association error when we moved to TX and the new ISP did something weird on their end
- I had a fire cutting earsavers when my grandkids distracted me for a moment
- Four. All but the network association error up above. The first 3 were under warranty and the fire happened on PG materials so they replaced my machine.
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- CQ12018
- Zero
- Zero
3a) This space intentionally left blank
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• How long have you had your GF?
**2 1/2 years
• How many issues have you had (major) (can you tell me what they where)
About a year into use I needed to order and replace the black lid cable.
• How many times have you sent your GF back to the mothership?
Never, and I hope I never do, as my machine was exported to Mexico and would be a hassle to get it back through customs.
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I have had my machine for a little over 3.5 years.
I had an issue where support had to make a remote adjustment for a software issue and, an issue after cleaning the air assist fan (basically, the belt stretched out a bit). My machine consistently needs higher power settings to cut through even PG material but, it is predictable.
The machine has not yet needed to be shipped back for anything.
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PRU in early 17, we had to repair the focus head on it then no other problems. Forever Pro unit September 17, no repair but I’ve had to run full calibration and I’ve lost the ability to read QR codes at some point. Both are what I consider minor but wanted full disclosure.
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Mine’s one of the first Pro units off the line (four years now?) and it’s never had a problem that I didn’t cause. (Displaced the high power cable accidentally while cleaning it once, and spent a couple of nail-biting weeks with it down while Support worked out the best way to fix it. It never had to be sent back.)
Still on the original lid cable too.
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I was sort of priding myself on running on all original components myself…but, any new record for that wasn’t meant to be since I did finally have to replace mine a few weeks ago. Gosh darned good run though…and today marks the day exactly four years ago when Glowria darkened my doorway and lit up my life.
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You might still hold the record…I think you had your machine before I did, so it’s not quite four years yet for me. Still a couple of months to go. 
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Misuse of words…should have been priding Dan and all of his great team for building such a solid machine.
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.8 years Hephaestus + 3 years Erichthonius
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We thought the WiFi chip had died, so they sent me a replacement - turns out our neighbors had cut our cable and we run our WiFi through the walls…so the first one probably went out to someone else as a refurb. Long live Hephaestus 
and hear hear to the “Try setting up your phone as a hotspot” set of instructions.
5 Likes
While I don’t know if I qualify as a “long time owner” … I do feel like a “long time Glowforge guy”.
I preordered in early 2016, but living in Canada meant I had to wait over three years to take delivery of my 
!
To answer your questions:
- I’ve had my 2 years as of mid-June
- No issues at all
- Never had to send back a unit*
*However, I did have to return the air filter when it finally arrived several months after the Glowforge itself. They had sent me a European air filter that required 230V power, rather than the North American version.
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Had my Basic since Aug 2018. Only issue was black lid cable.
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Had mine since the end of September. Not gonna answer the other questions for fear of “shooting the clown”… (Infer what you’d like)
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- How long have you had your GF? mid June 2019
- How many issues have you had (major) (can you tell me what they where) over 30 issues.
1.first one arrived with water spilled all inside and out. got replaced
2nd one arrived exact same way. from that day on, it has been one issues with another. - interent connections issues ( my internet is great )
- won’t cut accurately
- won’t center
- get stuck on scanning
- get stuck on centering
- head won’t move around during start up
and he list goes on and on.
now im waiting on the 3rd replacement and having to pay around $10,000.
so far this machine has been one issue with another. for those that are fortunate to have a great working machine I envy you. till today I have never had one successful project even made nor done. - how many times have you sent your GF back to the mothership? 3
3a) and for what reason read above.
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