I’ve cut a few different materials but haven’t experienced that. Sometimes some smoke after I open the lid. And certainly some smell while cutting.
So you say the front. So the door then? Not the lid? Hey do you have a Pro? Is it bleeding through the pass-through bladder?
I definitely see a lot more smoke coming out when the head is near the front, but tonight I was doing mostly engraves and cuts at mid-bed and was still able to see some smoke come out the front.
I’ll try the flame test tomorrow, but I suspect I’ll see that the air is flowing out and not in, from the front.
I do have a Pro, but I’m not seeing the smoke bleed through the flap.
I’m talking about the vertical portion of the lid on the front when it is closed, but it could be the door as well. I see it most on the upper half, but that may just be because of the smoke rising in the air. I’ll try the flame test tomorrow to pinpoint if it’s just the lid portion, just the door, or both.
Either way, I believe (according to @PrintToLaser) that I should have negative pressure along all those spots.
I’ll also try to do a very, very light engrave with the hose off, just to double check that it isn’t something with my ventilation setup.
Well, hopefully one of the many sensors onboard is for the fan and support will be able to diagnose it for you. What you are seeing is not normal.
You can also use smoke (incense, etc.) on the outside to see if it gets sucked in at all or pushed out at all. Same fluid dynamics test, less fiery fire. 
That’s just my experience bro, I’m no authority. But I would question the integrity of my exhaust run before a suspected leak in the case when other openings in it don’t exhibit blow back.
Great suggestion on the incense! Unfortunately, it only confirmed my initial test.
Even with the ventilation hose completely off, I’m getting the smoke to blow away from the Glowforge, during a light engrave. It’s strongest on the front by the sides of the lid, but still some on the door on both sides.
I guess I’ll just have to wait for the official word from support.
Maybe your fan is incorrectly connected and is blowing not sucking?
It’s a really strong fan (relatively speaking). Easy enough to know if you put your hand on the business end of the hose. I can feel the power from a couple of feet from the hose exit.
Fan’s aren’t reversible by swapping the connections, it would need to be fitted back to front and I think is is so powerful it would be obvious if it was backwards.
Seems like the exhaust fan is too slow or the intake fan is too fast to get positive pressure. Both have software control with PWM.
Already double-checked that. It’s blowing out.
I can feel air flow at the end of the hose, but not a couple of feet from the end. Sounds like my exhaust fan is too slow.
This was my initial thought, and the more I’m learning about other people’s “normal” operation, it sounds like it’s on the exhaust fan side. I’m hoping it can be resolved with an updated firmware for the PWM control, but fear it’s a bad bearing or power distribution.
A likely answer. I wonder if they can read fan speed remotely.
Thanks for letting us know about this. Even with proper filtration, small amounts of smoke and fumes can enter the air around your Glowforge, producing a detectable odor. You may also smell an odor when you open the Glowforge lid, even long after a print is complete. This is not harmful.
However, if you notice a strong, unpleasant or irritating odor when printing, or see smoke, shut off your Glowforge unit immediately. Smoke and fumes could be entering the room in excessive concentrations.
We’ve created an troubleshooting guide with illustrations. You can see it here: https://glowforge.com/support/topic/troubleshooting/print#excessive-smoke-or-fumes-during-print
If you’re still seeing or smelling excessive smoke or fumes when using Proofgrade materials, please let us know.
@vee, I did run through the troubleshooting before posting. In fact, what finally spurred this was that when I cut the Founder’s Ruler on Draftwood, it produced enough smoke to set off my fire alarm.
The issue is that I do not have negative pressure on my system, even with the ventilation hose off the system. I believe that my exhaust fan is running too slow to overcome the intake fan.
Wild shot. Peek under the rails where the exhaust port leaves the bed area and see if a wipe or chunk of foam came loose in shipment and finally lodged in the exit port.
People have been reporting loose odds and ends, so something could have that exit port inside blocked or a chunk of something locking the fan blade.
Just a wild idea I had reading this.
Thanks for the suggestion, but no dice. The area around the circuit board, heat sink, and fan blades are all free of random goodies left by the factory/shipping.
We want to be absolutely sure the problem is hardware because if we should authorize the machine for an RMA, and then discover that the problem was related to how it was installed, we’d have to charge you for the exchange. Since neither of us wants that to happen, let’s take a few extra steps to be certain.
Would you please do the following:
@Rita, let me know if this works for you! It shows my setup and a smoke test during a brief score. The fans on my window board in the video are not running at any time.