Hello! I ran into a very new to me bug - when I set my machine to score, I get a major overburn at the start and stop point of a line. It will cut through the cardstock with a pin hole. I am scoring cardstock tags with gift messages on them. I have done this many times in the past without any issues. I just scored a gift message last week so this is a very new problem.
I have tried restarting Glowforge, browser UI, Illustrator, and PC with no success. I also tried an older SVG file and got the same overburn result.
The only thing I can suggest is to speed up. When I score construction paper or cardstock, my speed is between 350 and 500 and my power ranges from 5 to 10. There have not been any changes to the interface that I know of that would cause this behavior. It was a major improvement when Glowforge addressed the problem of overburn at the beginning and end of vector lines. Do you get this same behavior with elements of your designs that are not script fonts?
I think you should send these photos to Support to see if they can identify the cause of this change. Glowforge support staff don’t routinely monitor this forum.
Ok, I submitted a ticket with support. I will update and see what they say.
Are these possible signs of the CO2 tube wearing out with inconsistent laser power? I’ve had the machine for going on 3 years now of medium use and a wide array of cuts, engravings, and scorings. I just don’t know what to expect when it depletes.
Not that it doesn’t happen, but this seems to be a fairly uncommon occurance. Many of us are still using machines that are 7+ years old and still going strong.
Today I tried to replicate your problem using typing paper and a number of score settings. I was not able to get the overburn at beginning and end points that you are experiencing. I did, however, put a piece of waste material under the typing paper to reduce flashback.
Thanks for testing it out to replicate the issue. I wonder if it’s a user or equipment issue only on my end.
This evening I am going to try to use a different computer to send the cut to the glowforge. I might also put it into pairing mode and reconnect it to wifi to see if it forces a firmware search/update.
I doubt changing computers or anything else you could do would change the way the Glowforge is behaving. The waste material to reduce flashback is worth trying, I think.
Here is a video of what is happening (if that works).
This is at speed: 250, power: 5 on printer paper.
It looks like it has intense power in one spot, then skips a little space. I have never seen this happen before. It also does the same thing in Cut mode. Engraving seems to be ok. File format doesn’t seem to matter either. I just tested SVG and PDF.
Here’s a final image. The dots above are at power: 2, and it hit the initial start point, then didn’t finish the score at the same intensity. You can also see the skipped spaces in the image on the script and shapes.
Are you designing these in a different program - or are you using the Premium tools? I’m wondering if maybe there’s a swirl or something that’s too tiny so you’re getting a cut through.
I make everything in Illustrator and export to an SVG. The video was a fresh file with simple vector shapes from illustrator and the script was changed to a filled vector shape before exporting.
There was a time in the early days that this was a problem that in order to stop it had to slow down and it did not change the power. This was fixed after the first year and has not been a problem since. Moving at high speed made it worse but low / speed low power created the least effect.
I think that support might even fix your issue without you touching anything. One of advantages of Cloud connections is that things lke that can be taken care of invisibly.
I saw that this was a problem back then, when I first started troubleshooting. I couldn’t find any new information after they resolved it with updates.
I sure hope support will be able to fix it. I realized last night that the machine won’t cut anything out because it leaves a little gap at every start point.
My next suggestion would be to run the Gift of Good Measure and see if you’re getting it there as well - and if yes, take pictures and send those off to Support so they can see exactly where the issue is!
I concur with @rbtdanforth though, it looks like you’ve somehow bounced back to prior to clean corners, and then made it worse somehow :-/
Update - I have been going back and forth with Glowforge support for the last couple days.
The Gift of Good Measure - as I watched it cut you could see it burn pinholes into the proof grade draftboard. I tried to show this in pictures, but you can see the deeper pinhole with the naked eye as you move it in the light. Support said this was fine, and I agree if I am using solid materials.
What I don’t understand - One day I scored a cardstock tag with no issues. Then on the next print attempt it didn’t work and I didn’t change any settings. Here is an example of my cardstock tags in the past Speed: 225 / Power: 2
I’ve run a test of multiple different speeds and powers on 100 lb cardstock with the test SVG file. Even on the lowest power settings it burns pinholes through to the waste material at the line endpoints:
Support said they watched the above video (HD version) and looked through my pictures. They are currently claiming all of this is normal behavior with the explanation that my power is too low. It doesn’t make sense to me though, because I didn’t change any settings and I now have drastically different outcomes, and the line endpoints still overburn regardless of speed/power.
