Hey all,
New to the laser work and glowforge, but it seems even with the cost of everything I am unable to escape cheap accordion ducting. Does not seem to seal well on either end.
Has anyone replaced this ducting with something else? Or tips to getting the included ducting to work and seal properly?
Thanks in advance.
Support can’t offer advice on outside setups beyond what comes in the manual, so I’ll shift this to the Beyond the Manual section for you. 
I like the Dust Right system that Rockler sells. It’s inexpensive and the hose is really durable and doesn’t develop pinhole leaks. The hose, a couple of the rubber ports, and a couple of worm clamps and the exhaust system is tight as a drum. Zero leaks.
People have also had good luck with pvc pipe.
There is nothing wrong with the provided duct. It’s what is used for dryer vent connections, for example, and you don’t want those coming loose or venting exhaust gasses into the home.
I have it from my machine to an inline fan, then another 25’ of the black insulated stuff from Amazon which was cheap enough. In two years, with constant moving (my vent arrangement is temporary, across the floor out a door), it’s never leaked. It’s just secured to the machine and fan with clamps.
meh. i mean, it’s fine for a dryer vent. that’s not a bad smell, so if some of it leaks, you smell clean clothes (or even fabric softener).
but if it has any pinhole leaks and you’re cutting acrylic or leather… yeah, that’s not so nice.
Yeah, when I was learning the ropes with the PRU I warned that you wanted your first cuts to be on wood, not leather - because if your exhaust wasn’t sealed a campfire smells a lot better than a cow fire.
My first cuts were in the dining room, no venting. I hadn’t worked out an exhaust setup but wasn’t going to let it sit overnight or longer while I did something about the basement 
Campfire in the dining room didn’t make my wife thrilled 
One thing to keep in mind is that sealing it well at both ends is really important as that is where the leaks will occur. I’ve got mine double-taped with duct tape. Some people swear by a butyl rubber tape like [this](Polyken 360-17 Heavy Duty Foil/Butyl Rubber Tape, 17 mil Thick, 100’ Length x 2" Width, Aluminum https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001AHLK4C/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_2QheEbG2ZNYAZ) one; it’s expensive but seems to seal the best (I haven’t tried it yet).
My experience as follows: no matter what I tried in my laser room, every time I cut acrylic my whole house would smell like acrylic. I even put weather stripping on the door to the room, completely taped up plastic around the window (double window has a gap between the panes when opened), taped bubble wrap all around the dryer hose, and sealed the ends really well. My next step was to get metal ducting. The duct hose has been between 4 feet and 1ft in length, depending on me reorganizing.
Then the threads about an inline fan started popping up, and so I got a fan and a speed regulator. I had disassembled my setup completely for reorganization reasons, so as a minimum viable test, I took the new fan and wedged into the outside of the vent hole, sloppily slapped the abused dryer hose back on and tested an acrylic cut. To my surprise, the smell was drastically cut down, so I used electrical tape to tape the dryer hose onto the GF, and now sloppily 
slap it back together each time I laser, about 1- 2 times a week or so. No problem with acrylic smell in the rest of the house. Bonus, I can have the inline fan on with the 'forge off and leave the freshly cut and still stinky acrylic in the laser bed to air out some.
Moral to the story, is one get an inline fan, best GF purchase yet, and two electrical tape applied correctly works better than the metal compression ring or the worm gear clamp, and is much nicer to your knuckles!
“Applied correctly” means to stretch the tape while applying it 
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