Anyone know whats going on here?

I’m trying to engrave slate coasters and the camera looks fine before the job is sent. Then when I hit print everything shifts and it actually prints the shifted way. Screen shots attached.

I’ve tried setting the focus height and rebooting the machine.

With dark materials like slate, it may not be getting a good read on the red diode laser that’s used to calculate the stuff for auto focus.

Have you measured the material with calipers and inputted that into the material thickness field?

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I did measure them. They stand at .31 inches which is what I have set.

image

This has also worked before without issue. Now I’m seeing the “you’re in the fast lane message” and since then this has been happening.

So the shifting is usually from the auto focus reading a different measurement than what is entered in the material height field.

Have you tried using the set focus tool?

Yeah, I have tried that. Whats also weird is that while the screen shot I pasted shows .31, under use uncertified material it says .125.

I also can no longer change the number…

Ahh I see what’s going on.

The focal height sets the focal height of the beam, it does not impact the camera overlay. You need to enter the material thickness into that field for the camera display to be accurate.

If you’ve used set focus, you probably can’t change the field unless you refresh the bed image, open the lid, refresh the page etc.

You aren’t getting a good depth reading from the set focus, it would appear.

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Do you know why the material thickness option keeps getting grayed out?

It’s filled in either by your choice of material or the set focus command, I think. Try what JB said to unlock it:

I’d try putting a piece of light-colored masking tape or something in one of the unengraved portions, like maybe on the forehead of the Bone Daddy, and set your focus there, so you get an accurate measurement.

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So I tired that, and this is what ended up happening.

Before, the unit prints:

And what I got, but I stopped it.

Its screwed to the right and smaller.

Huh. Okay, I’m stumped, then. :frowning:

If you use Set Focus before you set the settings, the ability to enter your own settings into the Unknown Materials slot is locked out.

Back out of the file to the Dashboard, then open it up again and enter the thickness of the material into the Unknown Materials slot. Then enter your Manual Settings. (Do not use Set Focus at the beginning unless you have white masking material on the slate.)

(And masking it might help if you are using Set Focus on each coaster for placement. The little red dot just has a hard time on dark materials.)

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I did try this and it’s not helping. And what’s weird is that I’ve done slate coasters many times before and I haven’t had this issue. I’m going to try some other material today and see what happens. I think it was happening on leather but it didn’t matter as much because it was a large piece

i have some slate coasters, I’m going to be following this process with great interest.

I suspect that the slate could give a lot of different thicknesses as it has a lot of thicknesses. By making your main piece that measures for everything in the center and make a jig, that will set the holes of the jig at specific numbers (like 10 x 6 inches, 12 x 8 inches, 8 x 6 inches, etc. then it will cut at those places no matter what and the material for set focus (like 1/4’ birch) that will give a correct average height,

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My question is why is it auto focusing when I set the focus numbers? If I did that shouldn’t it skip that part and just do what I entered in?

I think for the camera correction? (Because sometimes you purposely set the material height too high for a defocused engrave, but you still want the display to be correct on your screen.)

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Thank you everyone for your assistance here, I truly appreciate it! I think the paper idea from Geek2nurse was on the right track, it was just that the paper was not a large enough surface area. I put in wood with the same height as the coasters and had it focus on that and its working out so far. The print is now properly aligned! thanks again, it only took me 12$ in slate to learn this lesson lol

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Here’s the way it works, hopefully I don’t miss anything:

If you set focus, it will lock out the material height field

If you enter a material thickness, it will still auto scan to set the material thickness at the beginning of the job because the most accurate measurement for focus is the distance from the head to the material, not material thickness.

If focus height = material thickness, it will always use the auto focus measurement.

If the autofocus measurement fails for some reason, it will fall back to the material thickness field.

If the focus height is different from the material thickness field, it will respect the focus height field in setting focus, but it will still scan the material beforehand to take the measurement.

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