I was printing an image on acrylic and it switched from vary power to dots in the middle of printing. Why does this happens?
That’s not something that should be possible.
What makes you believe that’s what happened?
I’d love to see a photo, you’ve got me curious!
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Assume you mean in the middle of setup, not printing. Can’t change once you hit Print. There is no communication from your computing device to the printer through the cloud after that. Guessing it is in the setup process. Can’t count the number of times that I thought the settings were fixed and then just by looking at them I changed something.
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As previously stated, once the Glowforge has processed the file and the print begins, there is no way to change settings for the print in progress. You can, however, change items in the interface while the printing is in progress, but it will apply to the next print, not the current one.
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Here’s an image. I think it has to do with the line in the device
Your GF doesn’t know or care that there’s a line and as others have stated it doesn’t change settings mid-job. Your photo looks like the door/lower section is a different material - even though they’ve been painted to look the same.
BTW - it’s 100% certain neither of those is acrylic, it would be too brittle. Consumer products like that are usually made of ABS (which doesn’t laser well, gets melty like the top section of your photo AND emits cyanide gas).
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That doesn’t look like acrylic to me.
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The door looks to be coated metal, while the case is ABS plastic. That should not have been put in your laser. You can kill yourself or your machine in just one print if you burn a dangerous material.
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Thanks everyone!
ABS is safe to put in the Glowforge as long as you have a good ventilation setup. ABS can emit cyanide when burned, but that won’t harm the machine. You don’t want it venting into your living space, but as long as it’s all being vented outdoors it’s safe.
Coated metal is usually fine too, although of course that will depend on exactly what the coating is. But it’s common for people to mark anodized, powder coated, or painted metals with the Glowforge.
The main thing you want to avoid putting in your Glowforge is polyvinyl chloride (PVC) as burning that produces large amounts of hydrochloric acid, which will destroy your Glowforge as well as being toxic to you.
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