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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.)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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. 
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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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