Unable to get laser to work

Hello, we just received our glowforge on Friday. Yesterday, we were able to engrave and cut the gift of good measure keychain. We also played around with settings for non proof grade. Today, when we went to cut, it worked one time and from then on, the printer head and arm will move like it is engraving but the laser is not working and it wont cut or engrave. We have already cleaned the lenses, checked the power setting and even tried with the proof grade material. After that we tried recalibrating and it said it came back fine but nothing was printed on the paper and it did not help the issue. Nothing works! Does anyone have any ideas of what the problem could be?

I am sure Support will get back to you and extract your logs. They will want you to print the Gift of Good Measure on Proofgrade material using Proofgrade settings. Photograph the result and post pics along with the date and time of the cut so Support can look into the situation.

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On the left side in the vertical column, click on each operation and check your power settings for the operation. Click on the thumbnail and set the parameters, make sure the value of power hasn’t been defaulted to “1”, since to the machine, it is an unknown. Testing is the only reliable way to know what the end result will look like.
Scraps are invaluable this way. I need to test on a sample of the material I intend to use.

When it was non proofgrade material the cut power was set to 100 and then I used a proofgrade sample I received and selected the proofgrade setting and had the same result on both cuts. The arm moves around doing its motions but there is no laser emitting out.

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As stated earlier, you need to print the Gift of Good Measure, and if nothing is showing on the material, note the time & timezone of the attempt.

I’m so sorry to hear that you’re running into trouble with your Glowforge.

If your Printer Head is moving but you aren’t seeing the laser marking your material, there are two likely causes:

  • The mirror in the Printer Head is not installed correctly and may have been damaged.
  • The print power has been set to the lowest possible setting.

First, please inspect the mirror in the Printer Head

  • Follow these instructions to access the Printer Head mirror.

  • If you see damage to the mirror or the plastic handle (for example, if the plastic handle has been melted), please check the interior of the Printer Head for any additional damage. If you don’t see any signs of physical damage inside the Printer Head you can purchase a replacement Printer Head Mirror through the shop. Note: If there is damage to the plastic handle on the mirror, the mirror may be difficult to remove. You can follow the instructions here for removing a mirror that is stuck.

  • Once you receive your replacement mirror, please clean both the lens and Printer Head window, by following these cleaning instructions.

  • If you find any damage in the Printer Head, please take a photo of the damage and send it to us and we’ll follow up with next steps.

If the mirror looks good, do a test print

  • If the mirror is undamaged, please reinstall the mirror.

  • Place a sheet of Proofgrade material in the bed of your Glowforge and open the Gift of Good Measure design.

  • Before starting the print, please select the default Proofgrade settings. Once the material has been chosen you will see the word, “Cut”, “Score”, or “Engrave” under each step in the design.

  • When the print finishes, leave the lid closed and wait until the fans stop and the lid image updates.

  • If the design prints successfully, it is likely that the power was set too low on the previous print.

  • If you still don’t see the laser marking the material, please reply to this email including the date and time (with time zone) when your test print was run.

06/08/2020 at 6:37pm Eastern Time was the time of test print

Unfortunately, it looks like your unit is experiencing an issue that we can’t resolve remotely. I’ve responded to your email with next steps to sort out the details. I’m so sorry about the bad news.