Correct. Unfortunately in most of our experience, it’s not and it can be resolved faster through peer assistance than waiting for Support.
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Sadly, I’m out of time till this evening to run the whole print… unless I dared to leave it to burn while I’m not home. (which, I’m not, not even with simple proofgrade stuff, …cause talk about fire and brimstone…)
So, I’ll run it again this evening and see if it prints correctly.
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I just tried running this job very small on some scrap. There are issues…
The print head did some very weird things when it tried to engrave the first image:
it was doing a weird double-back movement (this was the sailboat):
Everything else seems uniformly misaligned, so I’m gonna go ahead and say it is an issue with the embedded bitmaps, although I don’t have any insight as to why.
I did a trace on them, removed a few stray lines, and merged all the overlapping text. Re-saved, and it ran fine.
tiny, but aligned.
I wish I could tell you why.
Here is my revised version of your file.
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Rotated or resized in Inkscape or the GFUI? (If the source file was crated in Corel then ignore this suggestion as CDR saves them as native embedded artifacts not tagged originals with alteration attributes in the SVG.)
Oh, that’s right, I have seen people mention issues with rotated bitmaps. I thought it was just a jagged-line issue. I have never experienced it with Illustrator. 
@lizabeta can you confirm which design software(s) you used?
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All other issues aside, I would recommend that you do your cuts last.
Even with proof grade, if there is any warp to the material, then the cut may cause it to shift slightly and that can cause alignment or inconsistent quality issues.
(Obviously, that isn’t the issue here as other’s have deduced… but once the real problem is addressed, re-ordering operations will make for a more consistent result!)
The OP did have the cuts listed as the final step (but she stopped before she got there). I also ran the cut operation last (although I did not re-organize the color scheme to make the cut-strp automatically land as the last step.)
One more note:
When I went to run something else after this, my alignment was way off. I canceled the print immediately, and noticed that the head did not move all the way back into its corner where it lives.
shut off the power, centered the head, and powered back up. After calibrating, the head returned home in the normal fashion.
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I’m running my own file again now, but I’ve reordered the steps. Scores, engraving text, engraving the images then the cuts. So far, things are on track and looking good (We are at the bottom row of circles in the text step.
That is super weird about the boat. When I rebooted and went to print again, I watched the print preview and the boat itself was out of the circle. So, the boat is on ignore, but the tree/flowers/finger/stars will print in a while (about an hour?)
What did you mean ‘merged the overlapping text’?
I am using AI (CC version). The images were png with transparent backgrounds. I did not rotate them, but did scale them down.
I’ll keep a close eye on the print, as it moves to the images, if it looks misaligned on the first glimmer of lasery goodness, I’ll stop the print and hand paint in my images.
My intention for these, btw, was just to spread them around the world for good cheer. Feel free to pass along your dime sized versions if they are readable.
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Oh… I see now. The overlapping outlines on text make areas with no fill. Good to know.
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I wrote a tutorial for merging text in AI, you can find it here:
Essentially, some fonts, cursive ones especially, overlap parts of the individual letters. This isn’t an issue when using a desktop printer (black + black = black), but on a cnc-type machine like the Glowforge it can cause those overlapped spots to be engraved twice (engrave + engrave = double engrave) , or it can cause voids (engrave - engrave = no engrave). Best practice is to avoid the overlaps altogether by using the Unite tool in AI.
(signage-specific design software are the only programs that I have used that have a “weld overlapping text” option in the save dialogue; if you send overlaps like that to a vinyl cutter it will makes cuts that you really don’t want.)
-edit- … I see you already figured out what I meant!
So, it got to the boat (which I had set to ignore… not sure why it went to print the boat, but I’m sure that was user error on my part somehow), and it was way off to the right
.
I lifted the lid in an emergency abort. Turned it off. Let it sit for a few seconds, rebooted it. Set previous steps to ignore and engraved the remaining images. At that point, everything went smoothly.
I’m not sure why its getting out of alignment mid-print.
I’m going to try the ‘fixerated’ file next and see if it’s any different.
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having an issue as well, attached is svg, png and jpg, in that order on proofgrade medium draft to test all three misaligned the same cleaned lens, recalibrated, wiggled crumb tray and moved it to the front, same issue all the way around
It’s best to keep everybody’s issues separate (even if you suspect it’s similar to someone else’s). Please create a new topic so you can get the best possible assistance.
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Thanks @jbv - great investigation!
@lizbeta - I’m looking forward to hearing how the fixerated file does.
I’m also curious: We included an extra piece of Proofgrade Draftboard with your materials shipment for troubleshooting. Would you be willing to place Proofgrade Draftboard in the bed and print the Gift of Good Measure in the front right corner. If so, please share a photo of the resulting print.
I’m off to Disneyland in the morning, and have one more print going right now. If I get a chance to day, I will. If not, I’ll do it when we return.
With respect to John Muir, The Mouse is calling and I must go…
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Curses, my file time overlaps my brunch date. #priorities.
Here is the file of good measurement.
While this prints just fine, I’d like to have faith that multiple steps will place correctly. The step loaded correctly on the screen.
The fixerated file printed just fine, and so did my own file, though I had to stop it mid-print to let it recalibrate.
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Thanks for doing those tests and sending the pictures.
Looks like the sailboat image was flipped, and there’s an issue with our software in handling images like that.
I’m glad the fixerated file worked for you.
Happy printing!