I’m in Northern California and our electric provider PG&E is turning power off in our area again. This is the third scheduled outage and may last 4 days. We just got a pretty powerful generator as I have orders to get out. Is it ok to use this for a power source to run my glowforge basic? That is if WiFi towers are working? ugh 
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Yes, you should be fine using a backup generator.
WiFi is your wireless network access in your house.
By WiFi towers I assume you mean cellular service towers or wireless broadband, and they may be affected or may have their own generators.
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what do mean by “pretty powerful?” Is the genny also going to run your house? Have you done an energy audit (calculate the surge voltage and running voltage of everything you want to power with the generator) you don’t want to overload it.
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I’d add that an inverter type would be better as the power is clean & okay for sensitive electronics. Otherwise I’d run it through an always-on UPS where the power is always coming through the UPS (& cleaned & filtered) on its way to the GF. A lot of UPS units are only on & passing power when it’s not coming down the line. Gotta check carefully.
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As long as it’s not from Harbor Freight or similar (low quality brands) AND as long as someone else isn’t going to be running power tools or welding while the GF is running, you’ll be fine.
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If I run the GF it would be that and my computer. Hope I have internet service.
Just wanted to say sorry you are having to deal with PG&E’s failings. 
I’ve been crossing my fingers that my neck of the woods doesn’t get any outages. 
(Been very lucky so far.) Good luck and hang in there!
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As long as the generator also provides power to the network equipment in your house, you will have WiFi, provided you currently have WiFi.
If you are again referring to your wireless broadband or other external internet connection that will depend on how the service provider handles power outages. You can probably get an answer to this question by calling them.
The reason that I bring this up is that WiFi and external internet connections are not the same. If you run into problems with your connection, you will need to know and specify the difference between your in-house WiFi and your external internet connection, however it comes in. The steps for troubleshooting are not the same and the solution to any network issue depends on where in the network the problem is. Using the proper terms will mean anyone assisting you will be better able to understand what the issue is, saving you and them a lot of time and frustration.
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I second using a UPS. I run electronics through a UPS as I don’t trust the power direct from the generator to always be spot on, even tho its a decent unit I do still hear the UPS beep due to the input quality. Stuff kicks on and off and that causes things to happen to the gen output.
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I would second that about filtering for electric. Many UPS put out power that had no part of the incoming power. The Ups puts out only power from the battery and the incoming only charges that battery as needed. That said your Glowforge uses a lot of power so you will need to not come close or over the limits of the UPS which may get expensive.
I would watch your internet for those times the power is out. A spark from even a generator can cause a disaster there these days and PG&E is still crying from the lawsuits when Paradise went to hell.
May those orders come only from customers and not fire marshals 
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I cut as much as I could get done before the shut off. Decided to just not use the machine and work on pieces and painting. 
Thank you for the response.
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