Hello, new user to GF. I have had my machine for about 2-3 months. I have been running into problems with alignment issues. I did a calibration on my machine last week and now I feel like it made the issue worse. Ive reached out to GF but NO LUCK. Hoping someone can help me on here. I will attach a photo I did this morning of honeycomb pins…tried something simple as I did not want to waste anymore material/money!
honeycomb pins|651x368
That really looks to me like the printhead got moved while the machine was on.
Nobody was in the room during the cut. This is happening on watch bands as well.
I mean that while the machine was turned on (not actually printing) the printhead was moved aside.
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oh sorry!!! thank you… I’m new and still have A LOT to learn!
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During the initial centering and focusing when you turn the machine on, the Glowforge “knows” where the printhead is located. It keeps track of the printhead during all engraves and cuts. If, however, the printhead is manually moved, the software no longer knows where the printhead is located.
If you turn your machine off and back on, I suspect your alignment issue will be solved.
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Thank you so much! I did clean my lense on the side of the pinter head but in all honesty cant remember if I slid it back to the left!! So this makes sense! Thank you again
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I recommend you should always perform any cleaning operation with the unit off.
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This is generally a Very Bad Idea. Leaving the room while the laser is operating means you cannot respond to a fire. Per the videos we have seen here on the forum, a fire can destroy your machine in less than a minute. I don’t leave my machine unattended unless I am working with a material like stone that isn’t masked and can’t catch fire. You also can’t see what is happening, so you can’t see what might cause problems like the one you reported.
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Like Tom said, you want to make sure the machine is off whenever doing any maintenance.
The reason you don’t want to slide it back to the left, or move it at all manually when the power is on, is that the Glowforge doesn’t actually know the head was moved. It didn’t send a command to move the head so it assumes that it’s still at the last place it was ordered to go, which results in the head location essentially being lost.
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What those guys all said… Back and to the left isn’t “zero”. When it initially centers, the GlowForge moves the end directly under the camera and looks at the Glowforge logo to get it exactly centered, then moves it half of the full range to the left and half of its full range to the rear. Since it started at the center, THAT’s how it finds “zero”. And after that, it just trusts math. But if the head gets bumped, then all bets are off until the next centering.
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I don’t know if this will be helpful, but my rule of thumb is that if I bump the printhead in any way, I turn off the machine, move the arm to the back of the machine and then turn it back on. This way it resets.
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If you look to the left, there is another lens. Clean it also and the mirror’s . Make sure when printing there is good air flow being removed. This helped me and I do a lot of printing and cutting. Good Luck…
Carolyn
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Thanks to everyone who replied!!! I am up and running and did about 13 cuts yesterday and no problems! I honestly think When I was cleaning the lenses (the only thing I cleaned ) I forgot to slide printer head back . So I turned machine off and back on and she was working great!!!
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It’s not something you need to remember. You do not need to move the head after cleaning it. Just leave it where it is. The head location gets calibrated every time you turn the unit on.
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