Refurbished GF -black lid cable issue

Community Support
1

Hi everyone,

We recently received a refurbished GF after our original GF from the very first batches that were made was replaced. GF couldn’t fix the machine and offered a replacement. The machine arrived, we tested it cut on it about 20 times and unfortunately couldn’t use it for a few months. We started it up yesterday and we keep getting error message that the “Camera can’t take a picture”. After sending numerous photos of various cable connections etc to support, we were told the black lid cable may have had a short and we need to replace it.

  1. So does anyone know how often these black lid cables short out?
  2. Has anyone had an issue with a black lid cable after just 15 prints?
  3. How often does the black lid cable get replaced?
  4. Any issues with refurbished machines that aren’t properly checked?
    The cable connections are pristine, the machine is plugged into a surge protector.
  5. Any other ideas out there what causes the error message?

We ran our original GF for many years with no black lid cable issue and never once encountered this issue. There is no WIFI connectivity issue as we tested the connectivity.

Thanks!

2

The original machines had many more issues with the black lid cable because they were shorter than the current cables and were stressed when the lid was fully opened. The cables have been available in the Glowforge shop for years because this is a part that many of us have had to replace.

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Thanks for the update - we never had a black lid issue on the original machine - maybe lucky.
This machine has literally been used 15 times so seems that the cable shouldn’t fail that quickly.

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Since your machine is refurbished, the black lid cable could very well be pretty used. I doubt new cables are put on refurbished machines.

https://community.glowforge.com/search?q=black%20lid%20cable

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Still on original after close to 5 years here.

Many issues related to that are caused by over-zealous cleaning - the connectors are delicate and the electronics sensitive to liquids.

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6

Minimal cleaning is the way, plus once I realized the black cable was a weak point I stopped opening the lid all the way. Original Pro here and no problems yet… :crossed_fingers:

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Thank you everyone for the input. Unfortunately the issue isn’t the black lid cable. The one we had on the refurbished machine looked pristine but we installed a new one per the recommendation of the support tech and we are still stuck with the same problem. Waiting on support which now suggests we have a calibration issue. This is so frustrating because the problem is still with the camera being unable to take a photo.

Definitely missing the chat support where someone actually followed the issue until it was solved. That support in our experience was really good - unfortunately this time around getting help is VERY painful and seriously impacting my business. We are back at square one with someone who hasn’t read the ticket history or the commentary and simply throwing out suggestions which have nothing to do with the issue.

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