Alignment off on very first print

[pmgoforth]

Just got my machine today and on my very first project (measuring tool) the alignment is off by nearly one inch. I made sure the crumb tray was correctly in place, lid was closed, proof grade draft board was snug in the upper left corner. Ruler showed left edge placement at 1" but cut was made 2" from left. Same problem with upper edge as well.

[Tom_A]

Although the units should be calibrated from the factory, you may want to try
https://app.glowforge.com/maintenance/camera-recalibrator

Also, I wouldn’t have my material upper-left, but lower-right. Not for any other reason aside from you won’t be able to engrave beyond the home position of the head. Aligning Proofgrade materials to the lower-most position will usually result in the top of the material being right around the top of where one can cut. Not a requirement. Just a habit I adopted when I first got the machine.

[Jules]

There will always be about a 1" margin uncut at the left side of the bed. The view you see on the screen has a frame around it that limits your on-screen view to the cuttable area of the bed. (And that starts about an inch from the left of the actual sheet edge.)

Same at the top, there is an area you can’t reach with the cutting head. To maximize use of your material, use an origin at the lower right of the material. Then you can flip it over and use the uncut inch or so at the left and top for scrap cuts later, or larger cuts.

[deirdrebeth]

This has accurate images of the area to the top and left that the laser cannot physically cut that @jules referred to:

Design not starting at edge

Another newbie question if you please. I ventured into non GF material just to practice and used a 1/8 inch piece of birch plywood to cut out some earrings. That part went fine I am happy to say, but I placed the designs in the upper left corner with about 1/4 inch leeway and this is where is started. is there a way to calibrate it so that it starts closer to where it is supposed to start? It scares me that I might screw up some important pieces once I get going! and I am sorry, the last pi…

Your best bet there is to place your material as far down and right on the tray as it can go.

If you mean something like this, that’s an alignment issue:

which would be addressed with the camera-recalibrator that @Tom_A linked to

[pmgoforth]

Thank you. I re-calibrated so hopefully this will help!

[pmgoforth]

Thank you !

[pmgoforth]

Thanks!

[Camilo.P]

Thanks for the answer @Tom_A and @Jules, that’s right; Your Glowforge has a maximum printable area of approximately 11″ (279 mm) deep and 19.5″ (495 mm) wide, and it’s reduced somewhat when the laser operates at high speed, as it can take space for the laser to decelerate. This means not all of the bed is displayed, or available to be printed on, so there will always be about an inch of space on the left. This material can be reused as scrap later for small pieces. For example, a lot of customers use small pieces of scrap to print these pins available in the free laser design section: Honeycomb bed holdown pins.

I’m going to close this thread - if the problem reoccurs, go ahead and post a new topic. Thanks for letting us know about this!