Sick and tired of this GlowForge

I have not used my Pro in a few weeks. Now I want to cut a couple of simple quarter sized circles. I’m now into it for thirty minutes. I have had 3 calibrations several offline and still have only one test cut.

This is getting ridiculous!! I have had this Pro Unit for 9 months or so and it still fails me when I most need it. Why can the GF developers not get this unit working? After nine months I still see no improvement or features added. I think that I wasted my money and should have bought three Chinese lasers for less money and between the three would have had more reliability than this hunk of junk.

To support… I do not want your weak apologies any more I want this thing to work!

PLEASE FIX IT OR REFUND MY MONEY!!

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Sounds like you have a shoddy connection to your network. :zipper_mouth_face:

Every thing else that I run the network with works perfectly. Many people complain about the same type of things. If this thing was designed better I should be able to run it of a 9600 bd modem. Yeah it would take longer but I’m having to cut things on the bandsaw cause its faster and more reliable. But thanks for your input

And many people have shoddy network locations where their unit is located.

You’re welcome.

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Sounds like there are a few weeks of firmware updates you’re downloading and installing.

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They don’t usually come out that frequently, and they’re cumulative (it only applies the latest available version, not each available version in between).

Though, one did come out about 10 days ago or so. That would account for at least one reboot.

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Thanks for that gem of info. That could be so, but why not provide a message so the user knows whats happening. Instead we sit here getting more frustrated by the minute. Now it seems to be working. Any idea if and when they will actually provide some decent features that have been promised forever but never seem to appear.

I second jb, my bet would be on connectivity. I myself have used two different machines and neither gave me the frustration you are experiencing. There are thousands of others out there who don’t have that problem.

Before the glowforge I have had issues of dropped signal because I was using a combination modem & wireless router. If that’s your case also, I highly recommend a stand alone wireless router. I spent$25 on a TP Link and those issues disappeared.

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That’s good to know. I’ve been wondering what would happen if I don’t use it for a while.

Works great. I use it all the time. Now that you say it’s working, what issue are you running into?

They’re notoriously tight-lipped about what they’re up to, so us lowly customers will only know when they release them*.

The only recent ‘feature’ you’ll probably notice about the latest firmware is that the lens purge fan runs a bit after the job completes. We don’t know why, and they haven’t said anything about it.

*They’ve seemed to have stopped with their announcements, so we don’t even always know about stuff when they do finally release it.

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It may be also, but I’m quite sure the air assist fan runs also because I feel the air moving forward from behind the head on my hand. I can’t feel any down draft from the head, but that may be because the lens purge fan is so small and the CFM is also compared to the air assist.

I’ll take your word for it.

I am going on user reports, as my GF hasn’t run the factory setup in quite a while.

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No I’m not using a modem. I referenced the modem that a GF should work if thats all one had and very slow response. I have a hi-speed connection and have my GF setup in the shop on an extender with boosted signal which is only fifty feet from my main router. The signal strength is a full five bars all the time. Other WAN based equipment in same local never have an issue. Unfortunately, the GF seems to always have some kind of issue which means a lot of time to cut a simple part. I’m getting more done just running stuff through the bandsaw than waiting for the GF to do its thing.

When it works it works well.

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I took a look at the logs from your Glowforge from the time you opened this thread, and I can see that two prints failed because the Glowforge was offline. Your unit does appear to be reconnecting often, and I can understand how that would be frustrating. I’d like to offer some suggestions to help improve the stability of the connection:

  • We recommend having a single dedicated AP broadcasting a network for the Glowforge, to prevent it hopping between APs.
  • Your Glowforge does not support 5 GHz, so we recommend disabling it on the Glowforge’s designated AP.
  • Trying DHCP reservation for your Glowforge, so it keeps the same IP after reboots.

Additionally, if you have a smartphone that can create a Wi-Fi Hotspot, I’d be interested in knowing if that works better.

  • Instruct your phone to create a Wi-Fi Hotspot (search the Internet for instructions specific to your phone)
  • Place your phone on top of the right glass panel of the unit
  • Hold down the Glowforge unit’s button for 10 seconds until it glows teal
  • Go to setup.glowforge.com on your laptop or desktop and follow the instructions onscreen
  • When prompted to “Connect Your Glowforge to Wi-Fi”, choose the Hotspot you created
  • Try a few prints

Let us know how it goes.

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Not sure about the purge fan because I can’t see it. But the air assist definitely starts to run strong after the ready light at the end of the operation. It runs even with the lid open and can see it with a mirror. Strong breeze. Maybe 5 seconds or so.

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Vee… Thanks for your help but I have no idea what the hell your talking about. Not everyone is a computer scientist.

My guess is that this advice arises from folks that have the same SSID for both bands and confuse the ability of their laptop to get good bandwidth on 5GHz with the bandwidth available for their Glowforge.

Vee’s suggestions could also explain why in addition to defining terms that their users may not know, but considering the pressure support is under caused by decisions made elsewhere at the company, constructive suggestions are probably better.

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By now there really should be a standard debug sequence for all this. There should be a human readable guide for users and a process for support staff.

I’m still suspicious about gf’s network handling having had some odd experiences.

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Yes considering it has two big antenna mounted at right angles in a mostly plastic case one would expect it to give comparable results to a laptop but it seems to have very fragile WiFi. For example people have to reboot their routers for it when every other device in the household is working.

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That’s a recommendation from the Troubleshooting section. Vee might have inside information that @jamesaellis1 has already tried that if this isn’t his first complaint on the subject. :slightly_smiling_face:

I’m no network expert either… I think what Vee is saying is that if the Wifi signal is weak or spotty, you can sometimes improve the strength by switching to a dedicated IP address for the Glowforge instead of using a dynamic one that changes every time you reboot the router. (Most routers use dynamic addressing by default for the IP addresses - they change a lot.) Couple of helpful internet discussions on the subject below:

http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-1932491/difference-dhcp-reservation-dhcp-exclusion.html

Those are very general - if you Google “How to set up DHCP reservations for XXX router” you can probably find specific steps for your router. It might be worth taking a few minutes to try to improve the connection.

Alternatively, Vee suggested setting up a Wifi Hotspot on your phone and running through the setup process again to see if you get a better signal. It’s all part of the diagnostic process, and taking the time to do it might get you a better functioning machine - which is the ultimate goal, neh? :wink:

Instructions for setting up a hotspot on any applicable device:

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+set+up+a+hotspot&oq=how+to+set+up+a+hot&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l5.7331j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Hope those help explain it enough to get you started on the diagnostic process.

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