So I am having some ‘issues’ with my GF Pro. There’s a lot of wood dust accumulating inside the GF (see photos). I am running the vent tube out the window and it is working, but for some reason I am still getting that accumulation inside.
What can I do to trouble shoot it, if there is indeed a potential issue?
What’s the best way to clean the dust off all the movable components, and especially the laser tube itself?
I’m almost hesitant to use it today, as I have about 5-6 hours of laser cutting to do - but need to build some prototypes so I am open to suggestions. Thanks in advance y’all!
With a few notable exceptions of fans, lenses, and the lid, the accumulated gunk is not a technical issue that can affect results greatly. To wipe all but lenses, I use Purell or similar hand sanitizer and mostly paper towels.
If you add a high volume external fan near the window vent end the smoke will spend a lot less time in the Glowforge, and thus settle less on the things it touches, but even then it will just build up slower.
Would you mind sharing the source of official information that indicates the light dusting of debris in your machine is “too much”?
It seems half the problems with cables/connectors reported here occur after people did some kind of “deep cleaning” - which is NOT a prescribed procedure, and completely unnecessary.
Follow their guidance. Keep the optics clean, and wipe down the rails.
It’s not really official information necessarily, but it’s more me looking at it and seeing that there’s a lot of dust covering the tube, tracks, etc. It seems like it shouldn’t accumulating THAT much if the exhaust is working correctly, which it seems to be.
It does, not really an issue. Some dust is just heavier and stickier depending on what you’re cutting. It is annoying to see our pretty tubes all gunked up but doesn’t affect operation.
Before they released their first machines they kept one in the office specifically uncleaned, and it kept chugging along. You can end up with debris in a bad spot (in the rails interrupting smooth motion for example), but other than the things they say to clean (lenses, mirrors, fans) it’s mostly cosmetic.
I actually do wipe off my laser tube, because I use it fading to invisibility as a reminder to clean all the fans (the lenses/mirrors I do far more frequently)
Thanks for the answer @robermar36, that’s exactly what we recommend! I hope you got all of the answers you need about cleaning, @npgraphicdesign. I’m going to close this thread - if you have any other questions, please write in to us at support@glowforge.com!
