Auto Focus vs Manual Focus

[hugoender42]

My understanding from all my readings in this community forum is that if you set a “Focus Height” in the settings of the individual asset on the left pane, that this will be used instead of whatever the machine reads when it does auto focus.

If this is the case, why then does the machine have to focus before starting a job? Whether that’s an automatic auto focus that occurs when you click Print or whether you manually choose the Set Focus option from the top menu before clicking Print, it seems like it’s unnecessary since you’ve already specified the Focus Height. What am I missing here?

[Jules]

Yep. There is a hierarchy of conditions that determine which measurement is used for the focal point height, because not everyone uses the machine the same way. Expert users can vary the focal point height on an individual operation and over-ride the auto-focus settings to get special effects such as wider defocused Score lines, or a lighter touch on acrylics. (Cuts down on acrylic banding effects in engraves.)

For safety’s sake, the head moves out to take an Auto-Focus reading immediately before the Print happens, and it needs to match the earlier thickness entered by either the QR code, the Unknown materials entry, or the Set Focus tool. If that second Auto-Focus does not match you should see an error warning in the app. (People forget to check the thickness when switching between materials.)

The only way to over-ride the initial thickness settings for a special effect is to enter the value into the operation itself. It actually will override the other settings.

So they are actually used for different purposes.