Weird issue with possible melting inside GF

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Hi- earlier today I was cutting, scoring, and engraving a sheet of ornaments (1/4 walnut if it matters). I’ve cut a full sheet once a day for the past week. No issues. But today, about halfway through the cutting, I got the message that it paused to cool down. I’ve never had that happen before. We are northerners living in hot Texas and keep our house at 68 inside. It was a lot cooler outside today than it’s been for months. Also, before cutting the sheet, I cleaned the mirror and windows, the camera, and the lens with a zeiss wipe just before starting. The lid needs to be cleaned, but I didn’t get around to that (just the camera). Anyway, after pausing to cool down a few more times, the ornaments were done. But two had cut off the sheet (they were lined up before) and half of them weren’t even cut all the way through. Perplexed, I recleaned everything, this time removing the carriage plate and cleaning the fan back there as well. I cleaned the fan at the exhaust a couple weeks ago, and it’s not dirty at all. I use an inline fan and that’s working just fine. There was dust on the heat sink so I vacuumed that, and I cleaned the mirror (or is it a lens?) thats on the left side of the wall inside of the GF. Beneath that, i noticed what looked like gouges that had been melted (??!) off! i have no explanation for it (no fires or anything crazy going on inside the GF). maybe it always looked like that? I also noticed a dot or scratch on the window thats on the side of the printhead (that faces that mirror/lens thing with gouges below it). I unscrewed that from the printhead and cleaned that as well. Then i put everything back together again. I watched it closely for the next hour- cutting each ornament one at a time. Everything worked great. so I tried to cut another full sheet of ornaments. They engraved and scored fine, but (an hour later) when it began cutting the second ornament, it shut down again to cool. I watched it when it started back up again, but can see nothing crazy, aside from another scratch/dust on the window on the side of the printhead that was definitely cleaned off before this print. Ill attach the photo of that (through my dirty lid), but i cant grab a picture of the left interior side because I don’t want to cancel this print.

Any idea whats going on? Could that dot or dirt on the side window on the printhead be from the laser shooting out of the side, gouging the inside of the GF, and heating up the GF, necessitating the cooldown? That seems absolutely ridiculous but i cant think what else is going on. Everything is clean (except my lid). There are no flames, no sparks, and I certainly don’t see any lasers shooting anywhere other than down. The photo is a screen grab from a video. There’s that dot/dirt on the window like before, where I cleaned it off previously. I’ve never unscrewed that window until today, after the issues started.

Any advice is welcome!

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That can be a misaligned laser. It rarely happens except in shipping, but if you have removed the window under the left hand side and got it crooked it might hit below the window causing the melting and heating up the inside. I would expect under those conditions It might cut on the left but not on the right side.
Other than making sure that window under the left side is properly seated, there is nothing else except to get a refurb. A new head is likely necessary at the least.

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It finally stopped cutting. Here’s a photo of the gouges. The cut is perfectly aligned and it cut through this time.

I’m wondering if the gouge and spot on the window is a separate issue from the overheating.

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I think you should send photos of the melted points to Glowforge. It seems the optics are misaligned.

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That is crazy that they should be there. They are normally on the head when the beam aim is off. Like this…

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That is even a different design from mine :confused:…
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So I spent the day going through my gf with a fine toothed comb (or some wipes, a bottle brush, and qtips) and discovered that the rear fan that I thoroughly cleaned not a full month ago, was completely caked with grime. I so I cleaned that and also took apart my inline fan to make sure that was clear.

That solved the issue with the overheating, and also taught me that perhaps I shouldn’t be cutting a certain company’s eco product line without cleaning it a few times a week.

Anyway- back to the gouges … if indeed it was caused by an errant laser, is it possible that it happened once and somehow fixed itself? Because most of the cuts I’ve made today are all fine. Could the optics and alignments be off, while still giving me mostly consistent cuts?

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