Smoking me out of the room

I am super frustrated. I have had my machine for about month and have followed a lot of advice, but the smoke is really bothering me. I have an S6 inline fan and I’m taped all the connections and am venting out the window. My husband made a board with foam to put in the window. I bought an air purifier and still when I do more than a couple of items the smoke burns my eyes and throat and it’s stinking up my house. Please help!

Have you toggled the Glowforge filter to on since you have the inline fan?
Does the smoke exit the machine quickly? Are you using the hose that came with the Glowforge or have you upgraded to one not prone to puncture?

1 Like

A photo of your exhaust set up might help us figure out what’s wrong.

1 Like

Where is the smoke coming from? What are you cutting primarily?

If the S6 inline fan is close to the window and if you are pumping 400cfm out the window, any hole anywhere before the fan will have the air being sucked in and not blown out.

If you are opening the lid right after a cut and keeping cut materials hanging about then you will have smell. I leave my exterior fan running 24/7 so I get very little of even that.

It might be worth checking to make sure the smell is not just blowing in another window?

It’s 106 here so there are no windows open!

Not sure and I cut birch and MDF primarily both 1/8 inch.

I do t know how to add photos here.

Just drag and drop into the window you type in.

MDF particulately will eat a filter in no time. :grin:

1 Like

Cut more Hickory? :yum:

They are venting out a window according to the initial post.

I’m so sorry for the trouble while using your Glowforge. 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:
https://support.glowforge.com/hc/en-us/articles/360034142593-Excessive-Smoke-or-Fumes-During-Print

To help troubleshoot your exhaust, could you send me a few photos of your exhaust system? Specifically, please include pictures of the following:

  1. The exhaust fan from the inside of the unit. To capture this photo:

    1. Turn your Glowforge off

    2. Open the lid

    3. Using both hands, gently pull the printer arm towards you as shown below:

    4. Move your phone or camera inside the Glowforge on the left-hand side, past the metal rail, pointed away from you towards the exhaust hose, to capture a photo like the one below:



  2. A photo of where your exhaust hose attaches to the Glowforge, where your exhaust hose exits the room, and the path your exhaust hose takes from your Glowforge to the exterior vent or Compact Filter





  3. The exhaust connection on the back of your Glowforge, with the exhaust hose removed:



  4. Any area where you see smoke escaping from your Glowforge while printing


If you have trouble including the photos here on the forum, you could instead email them to our team at support@glowforge.com. We’ll be happy to look into this with you!

I see that we are currently working on this through email, so I’m going to close this post.