I rec’d an email stating my glowforge had a small tuning issue at the factory that has been affecting the power and speed settings. We will adjust this on 9/1 and 9/2 so your settings will operate properly. It was fine until after the adjustment, now I can’t engrave on non-proofgrade material. It gets half way through and says it has to cool down. I have made small adjustments to both the speed and power and it doesn’t matter it still says it has to cool down even though the laser head is cool to the touch. I think it was fine and didn’t need tuning. Please help.
The laser head isn’t the part that needs to cool down. What model do you have, and what’s the temperature of the room?
the plus and mid 70’s. it’s in our home and I have the portable filter so I don’t need to stick the vent out the window. I had no issues prior to 9/2.
Which model do you have?
75º is the limit for the Basic and Plus…
It’s overheating. From https://glowforge.com/tech-specs:
“Recommended Operating Temperature: 60F-75F (16C-24C) Basic and Plus”
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Then it should have overheated prior to now. I have had the glowforge for 2 months and never had an issue until now. FYI the link you gave says it cannot be found.
Well, you’ve been lucky for 2 months, I guess. 
I don’t know what Discourse is doing to the link; I copied and pasted straight out of my browser. Let me try again:
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The second link worked thank you. I will try putting a fan on it to see if that works it helping keep it cooler. It’s just weird it was fine until after they said they would tune it.
That was a focus adjustment, wouldn’t have anything to do with operating temperatures. If you search the “Beyond the Manual” section for “cooling” you’ll find lots of ideas for helping your system stay cool when operating in a room that’s at its upper limit.
I will do that. Thanks for the info
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A couple of other things to check – see if your vent fan has started to clog up; that would contribute to overheating. 2 months would be pretty fast, but if you’ve been using draftboard / MDF core plywood a lot, that could be happening. Also make sure nothing is blocking the air intake vents underneath the machine on the right-hand side. Sometimes a piece of paper can get sucked up there and block the flow of air.
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I will check that. I have been using it primarily to engrave slate and ceramic tile and cork.
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I’m sorry to hear about the trouble with this. I’ve investigated the logs and sensor data from your Glowforge, and the issue does appear to be with the temperature readings. This function of the Glowforge would have been unaffected by the recent tuning change you mentioned.
So we can take a closer look into the issue, could I please have you provide a few photographs?
Assuming you’re using a smartphone, try these tips for great photos:
- Use flash
- Zoom in using the digital zoom
- Hold the camera/phone far enough back to get good focus.
Here are the photos:
Motor on the laser arm (and surrounding):
Inside, left of machine:
Pull the laser arm all the way forward.
Reach over the laser arm, and to the left of the inside of the unit and you’ll see this circuit board:
Left side of front door:
Reply with these photos, and we’ll be glad to take a look. If you’d rather not share them here, you can send them to us directly at support@glowforge.com.
Thank you!
You post includes an image that we cannot see:
from glowforge.atlassian.net /wiki/download/thumbnails/1050247263/Interconnect%20Board%20Photo.JPG
This should be fixed now! Thanks for letting me know. Please let me know if the photo still can’t be seen.
Yup, it’s there now.
I see you replied via email with the photos I requested. Thanks for that! So we can keep our troubleshooting to one place, I’m going to close this thread, and we can keep working on it there.