When I first looked for information about cleaning the Glowforge, I was disappointed that official support did not go into any more detail than empty the crumb tray, wipe the floor, and wipe the lens and head window with Zeiss wipes. My Glowforge was a mess (in all nooks and crannies) and I was clueless how to get it clean without messing something up. After looking around the forum and seeing what you all do to clean your own machines, I felt better about it all. Needless to say, I let my Glowforge get exceptionally dirty so I’d have something to show you all. If you’ve never cleaned your Glowforge, I hope this tutorial prepares you and gives you a heads-up.
Any tips for getting the exhaust fan area good and clean? That’s the one area I always have a problem getting as clean as I’d like it to be. Such a tight space to get to from the inside.
My Glowforge was in an awkward place so I didn’t move it to look. I did tonight and it is awful. I’ll try and record what I’ll do tomorrow and append it to the video. Off the top of my head I think I’ll blow it with canned air and then flood it with contact cleaner (maybe with the Forge tilted back slightly) and have a shop vac at hand. I’m not sure. You’d think they would have made it easier to access. I’ll probably replace the dryer hose. Thanks for bringing it up.
I got mine at Home Depot but you might find it anywhere looks just like the one I bought. I found so much fiber it looked like the hose was stuffed with cotton.
People inquired about cleaning the exhaust area. I did not look to see how much could (or could not) be accessed from the inside, but did decide to take a look at the outside (a pain given the location of my machine and the heavy table it is on). I was shocked at what I saw. The fan and grill were caked with debris. It is difficult for me to understand why the area was designed it in such a way that one cannot remove the grill or fan for easy cleaning. In addition, it is difficult to imagine the fan lasting very long if not serviced regularly. Since it is not even mentioned in the official support documentation under “Cleaning, Service, and Moving,” it is doubtful most people will even bother looking at it.
I took a stab at cleaning it. You can see it here:
Using a vac brush attachment with some longer horsehair bristles works really well. (Hard to find those now - I had to go to a special vacuum cleaner parts supply store to snag an adapter to fit it on the Shark vac.)
I saw a commercial the other day for a vacuum attachment that had these long plastic hollow tubes that each had suction. I wonder if you could jam them through the grill and clean the fan blades?
I looked at them, and the straws themselves do not appear to be flexible, just the hose they were attached to. I believe there were some complaints about the straws breaking off too.
If you decide to test one, be sure to report on how it works out, cause I nixed it based on the reviews.
But I am curious as well.
