Smoke in room

Hey everyone. My laser room is filling with smoke but I can’t figure it out. The laser bed is emptying fairly rapid (venting out a window). Here are the things I’ve tried:

Cleaning both on board fans
Attached inline fan to assist in moving of smoke
Used laser to try to find the source of the leak (not successful… I can smell it pretty strongly during cutting but can’t seem to find where it’s coming from)
Checked the seals on the windows to make sure there was no back draft from outside.

I’m exhausted and frustrated. Everything was fine
Until yesterday and now it’s hard to be in the room because the smoke is so bad. I’ve read so many GF articles and forum topics that I’m just dizzy (or it may be the smoke :joy:.

Any ideas from all of you brilliant people?

Can you post a photo of the window it goes out of? just want to see how its setup, might be something ive ran into before.

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If you dont have a piece of weather stripping sealing off this section that is where your smoke is coming from most likely. when the window is cracked like that to allow for the vent line the area between the windows is not sealed.

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Yeah we thought the same thing. We tried a quick fix of Saran Wrap and lots of tape to seal off that crack and still have smoke. There is no air flow there now but still smoke.

The frustrating part is that it’s been working just fine and then randomly decided to hate me. :confused: lol

mine was the same way, what i used was stick on foam tape doubled up stuck to itself then pressed in between the 2 panes. got rid of almost all of my smoke. It can also come from below and above the window, where the window tracks back and forth.

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Alright. I’ll give it a try tomorrow to see if it helps. Thanks for the ideas! <3 I don’t detect any airflow in from that window since we sealed it off with the tape and Saran Wrap but who knows. Worth a shot.

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Does the board you are attaching the vent to have weather stripping on it too?

When the problem is all of a sudden it hates me, I get the feeling, it normally is a build build up or environment change. For example, the wood board can warp with rain and humidity. It can also change due to heat and cold. These changes can introduce new holes where the smoke comes back into the house.

Do you have any screen material on the outside of the hose? This might have been put on to prevent insects from coming into the Glowforge or house via the exhaust line. Before I had even posted my first smoke filling room post, that was actually my problem. When I posted about it here the problem seemed to have been more caused by the onboard fan and other inline fan not having enough power any longer to remove the smoke properly.

Looks like you have the same external inline fan that I have. Have you taken the center fan piece out and cleaned it? Also, I have you gone outside and felt the air flow? Not sure if you can do this last one.

During my troubleshooting I had long running cut processes going on with draftboard to produce massive amounts of smoke and I slowly inspected the entire line process to see where things might be going bad.

Finally, a couple of tips. Go get a Filtrete 2500 MPR filter from a big box store. Make sure it is 20x20 and get yourself a box fan to tape it to the front of. This will greatly help in removing the smoke from the air between test runs as you figure out what is wrong.

Because mine is in the basement I also installed that filter in my AC as its filter. When the AC is on, the air intake was pulling the air from the basement and circulating it through the house. With the new filter, the AC now helps to clear the room of any odors that are normally lingering. This last point is really about when things get fixed.

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The board has weatherstripping on one side of it… we think you’re right. I think the smoke is back flow from outside. Going to go to the hardware store and just weather strip the entire setup and try again.

Great idea with the box fan and filter!

The weather here has gotten cold and clear so I’m hoping it’s what’s caused this.

Will update everyone after we weatherstrip the hell out of that window! :joy:

Another option, I have this on my basement, is to have the exhaust finally dump a little ways away from the window. This should result in less smoke flowing back into the house.

So in the picture it exhausts directly out the window, get some pipe or just the standard dryer vent stuff and attach it outside and run it a few feet from the window. Just make sure that you aren’t running it up wind.

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I’m so sorry to hear about the trouble you’ve been experiencing! I’m glad that the community has been able to offer some great troubleshooting steps for the time being.

When your Glowforge is properly set up, you may have some harmless odor during printing which will rapidly dissipate. You may also smell something when you open the Glowforge lid after a print is complete. This is not harmful.

However, if you detect a strong, sharp smell that also causes eyes, nose, or throat irritation, or if there is visible smoke escaping while the lid is closed, shut off your Glowforge unit immediately. Smoke and fumes could be entering the room in excessive concentrations.

We’ve created a troubleshooting guide with illustrations. You can see it here:

I see that you’ve got some additional steps moving forward. Please let us know how it goes, or if you notice the same behavior after checking on the ventilation outdoors.

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Alright cool cats! Between a new hose and some
Weather stripping we are back to normal! Love your faces and thanks so much for all your help!!!

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Hey @ashleyn,

I’m glad to hear you resolved it, that’s awesome news!

I’m going to go ahead and close this thread now. If you run into any other trouble, please start a new topic, or email us at support@glowforge.com. We’re happy to help!

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