Wow! You’re some kind of forum ninja. When do you find time to eat sleep or do real work? It seems you reply instantly with helpful info on each and every thread. Thanx.
I hope the folks at Glowforge give you some sort of kickback or other benefits for all the service you provide to us all on their behalf. Maybe they need to put you on their payroll. 
Nope…couldn’t take it anyway, wouldn’t be fair. (I do this to keep myself out of trouble.) 
I know draftboard kills the filter quickly and I assume the same goes for any MDF. What other types of materials should be avoided.
Resinous softwoods like pine and cedar, as well as padauk, which is a hardwood but has a sticky-ish resin as well that clogs the pores on the filter fast. (At least from my testing.)
You did a lot of testing early on, including a bunch of pre-filter work. Curious as to what you do today. Do you use the compact filter? DO you use the panty hose or other pre filter?
No, I generally vent outside. I bought the filter to test it. (Because I was curious, not because I had no other option.) It works fine, but I do have the ability to vent outside here, so that’s the best way to save on filters. 
I would add that I do fire it up once in a while if it’s pouring outside, because the humidity gets cut way back that way.
thanks.
I use the compact filter a lot since I can’t vent outside (HOA rules). I found a lot of the easy pre-filter options didn’t do enough (air-conditioner foam filters, washable woven filters, etc). They caught some of the particles, but I was still only getting ~15hours of wood cutting/engraving before the cartridge blocked completely. So I did some research.
I ended up building a box for a 4in, 20x20 MERV14 furnace filter and using it as a pre-filter. This is approximately the pre-filter in high-end laser fume extractors. This completely eliminated the clogging problem caused by various woods, with the filter now lasting 30+ hours. The charcoal is now the limiting factor, as it should be. It doesn’t even have a significant impact on initial airflow.
Honestly, I feel like Glowforge should offer up something similar as an official solution. I’ll be honest, wood doesn’t work well on the current filter as shipped. Even offering it as a add-on specifically for those who work with wood would be fine. While I built the box by hand, they could easily get metal boxes made cheaply and resell them, same with 4in or 5in deep large filters. The whole trick is it needs a MERV14 - 15 pre-filter to catch the gunk in wood smoke.
Lots of quesation, my filter already stoped working after 6 project. 5 out of 6 where gf martial. Replace few time a month this rate so cost replacment a good quesation
Some materials do fill it up faster. Things like draftboard, MDF, soft woods with a lot of resin… will fill the filters up quickly, because they throw a lot of sticky particles that clog the filter.
You can order the replacement filters in the Glowforge shop in the Spare Parts section.
so what should I be using to lessen the resin more hardwoods??? if the filter goes bad in 6 use of draft board the cost 250.00 make that very expense project and out of reach., I was testing design on draft board because I am new and didn’t want to waste on test project.
Draftboard (or MDF) is always a problem with this kind of filter, and it will fill it up to ten times faster than plywoods and hardwoods. That’s just a function of the physics of it…draftboard and MDF throw a lot of glue and particles when they are burned. And the sticky particles clog a fine filter.
You can try using a pre-filter to catch the particles, but you need to clean/change that much more frequently. (Although they are a lot cheaper.) A couple of people got additional time out of their filters by using these little pre-filters.
You might want to give that a try if you need to cut a lot of MDF.
Search pre-filter. Lots of discussion about them and examples of what has worked for different people.
I didn’t have much luck with the foam filters. They extended the life by maybe 1-2 hours, but mostly they aren’t catching much beyond you couldn’t vacuum off the top of the filter. Even with that kind of pre-filter I was only getting 15hrs before the airflow stopped. I went through several cartridges before I gave up and built a pre-filter box.
Sharing the plans for that would likely make you an extremely popular person here.
I am also needing to alter my venting still waiting on confirmation that my filter change has been received.
When I sell stuff to customers it goes out within 2 weeks, I would never consider holding anybodies money for 2-3 years till I get my stuff sorted out in manufacturing. end of rant
As for testing designs I now do a simple test cut of the layout at 1% power to align my media properly on bed to stop all my mis-cuts from crappy camera alignment and I cut up cardboard boxes to see if I need to resize the file first. Being able to resize with exact measurements is really an important add on.
@dan would be really great if we could download the files we have purchased so we can alter the designs. I have files I have bought that I have never printed due to not liking some of the elements.
Have you run the camera recalibration yet? You should not be getting crappy alignment once you do.
Often I use cardboard for testing a design…so that might be something for you to consider doing in order to save your filter from filling up too quickly.
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