Smoke coming out of the front PLUS

We have a Glowforge Plus and we have had smoke come out of the door seams on the front the last couple of weeks. This hasn’t happened at all until recently. We read the instructions to clean the fan and we did that. It was very dirty and clogged so we were hopeful this would fix it. Much to our dismay, we are still having the problem.
What else can we do to fix this? The smoke coming into our room is terrible…

If you are using a Compact Filter with the machine, and have dialed up the fan on it, that’s a sign that the filter is full and needs to be changed out.

If you are not using a Compact Filter, there might be something blocking the air intake at the lower right side of the Glowforge. Or there might still be something blocking the exhaust path. Check the back port on the GF after removing the exhaust hose. Make sure the grid there is not clogged and if it is, vacuum and brush it well to clear it. Check the hose itself, make sure it isn’t blocked, and that there are no sharp bends in it. Check the exterior port and make sure it isn’t blocked. Open any blast gates you have installed. (Yes, it happens.) :slightly_smiling_face:

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Thank you for your reply! We have checked all of that… it almost feels like the fan itself isn’t working as well as it did before.
We don’t have a compact filter, the grid isn’t blocked as we cleaned that (it may have been blocked before but now it isn’t), and we don’t have any blast gates that I am aware of. :frowning:

How did you clean the fan? Did you use that electronic degreaser recommended by the GF team?

It might require another pass. The grunge on the blades can be very sticky depending on what you’ve been cutting, and it might take more than one run at it to get it all off.

It’s possible that the fan is dying too, of course, but they do tend to gunk up and if you can get them cleaned off they run a lot better.

We did use the instruction from Glowforge. We did it a good three times and the fan now looks clean as well as the grate behind it. Before we cleaned it, it WAS very dirty and full of gunk!

Well, that’s all I can think of to try. The support team might have some other thing for you to test, but they might need to look at the logs now.

Good luck with it.

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I had a similar thing happen with my plus. Went through all the same steps…turns out I had pushed my worktable back a bit much and basically kinked my exhaust hose…boy did I feel sheepish

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It is possible to mess up the connection to the fan if cleaning too vigorously. With the Machine off, you can try turning the fan and it should turn easily.

In the procedures @Jules mentions, there is a way to turn on the fan only so the Glowforge is on but there is no cutting happening and you can even lift the lid. If the fan does not turn on you might wiggle a wire and see if you can get it to connect but if not then it will have to travel back to the shop.

This happened to me but I was able to forestall it for a couple of months past Christmas by adding a fan booster to the exhaust hose. Even with the new machine, I find it improves airflow and creates less gunk buildup as the smoke hangs about less.

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Unfortunately, it looks like your unit is experiencing an issue that we can’t resolve remotely. I want you to have a reliable unit, so I’m recommending we replace this one. I’ll be in touch via email to sort out the details. I’m so sorry about the bad news.