Custom Material Settings & Autofocus Issue

Issue Summary - I cannot cut (thinner) material using my saved custom settings.

I had an issue today where I was cutting a material I have cut many times before and it was clear the focus was off. I did restart and check all my lenses and such. I reviewed some recent posts regarding this issue, did some tests, and have the following notes.

My material is about 0.148 in thick. I have a saved setting at 195/FULL. I have a Pro.

  1. material flat on crumb tray, set focus, cut circle using SAVED setting at 195/FULL/auto focus - RESULT - out of focus/ did not cut through
  2. material flat on crumb tray, set focus, cut circle using MANUAL setting at 195/FULL/auto focus - RESULT - in focus/ cut through
  3. propped material up to double height, set focus, cut circle using SAVED setting at 195/FULL/auto focus - RESULT -in focus/ cut through

Anyone else have this issue? Can this be resolved? I would like to be able to use my saved settings.

Thanks!

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For all three are you choosing uncertified material?

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Yes, uncertified material. I am not choosing that, but I am leaving the default at unknown and hitting set focus.

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For each experiment did you watch to see the focus beam land squarely on the material, not on a hold down pin or the honeycomb tray? I believe the auto focus beam is different than the set focus beam in terms of where it focuses, but I don’t know for sure.

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I did not watch for that, but the little square that shows up after the set focus function was on the material in a satisfactory location. I will try again and watch the light to be sure.

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I repeated the tests and confirmed that the red light hit an appropriate spot each time. The results were the same.

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Now the Glowforge detectives have their work cut out for them! Luckily you know how to get proper results and perhaps your identification of this problem will result in a bug fix.

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Cut through on left two, did not on the right.

I also tried a new saved setting in addition to my existing saved setting. Still didn’t work.

@dklgood - Glowforge detective has a nice ring to it!

@melissapass I’m sorry for the trouble when running prints using the settings you’ve saved in the past. Thank you for the way you ran your tests and provided our team with a detailed summary! It made it easy for me to locate the logs from the three prints of the hearts shown in your pictures and then take a close look into this. I have some thoughts on next steps to share.

A quick note I’d like to share first is that the manual recommends against stacking material. Multiple sheets are more likely to burn, or material could be knocked free and interfere with the proper operation of your Glowforge. For that reason, it’s recommended to only cut one sheet of material at a time.

When I reviewed the three test prints, I noticed that the one that cut through successfully had the focus height toggle set to “auto”. Here is an example screenshot:
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When this toggle is set to Auto, your Glowforge will use the height measurement taken by Set Focus to focus the lens for that print step. We recommend using the auto setting for the most accurate results. As a next step, will you try running your test with your saved setting again with the toggle set to auto?

If it goes well and you want to update your saved setting, you can do so by clicking the disk icon in the upper-right:
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I look forward to hearing how it goes!

Thanks for the reply. I did quite a few tests today trying to isolate the issue. I did confirm that the toggle is on auto. The issue actually seems to be related to adding new custom settings. Perhaps it’s due to the number I have saved? Is there a limitation there?

I also noticed something weird in the user interface where when I added a new setting. Other saved settings were changing to the newly saved setting. I will make a video to make it more clear.

You can see that all the setting change to match the new custom setting “z” of 500/FULL. When I delete “z” they go back to their original settings.

The same thing happens when I change an existing saved setting. I have to delete the shape selected during the change to get the other settings to go back to their original numbers.

Actually, after a many more tests, it seems like modifying an existing saved setting is what makes the cut get out of focus/ the original issue. And this has not always been the case as I have frequently modified my settings in the past. Any thoughts on this? Thanks!

Thank you for the additional information and the detailed video. I was able to see this on our end too, and I’ve shared this with our team so we can investigate further.

For now, will you please upgrade your browser to the most recent version and try the following?

  • Create a new setting similar to what you showed in your video
  • After saving the new setting, refresh your browser
  • Select your other custom settings and let me know if the values are what you expect to see

I updated my browser and tested as requested. Refreshing the browser after creating a new saved setting did correct the view of the other saved items. I have attached a video to this effect. I also test cut this newly saved setting against a custom setting with the same values. Both shapes cut cleanly. However, on subsequent cuts this was not the case. The newly saved setting is out of focus/ doesn’t cut and the custom setting cuts cleanly. I have recorded videos to demonstrate the issue and will describe each in the following posts.

Please let me know your thoughts on this. Basically it seems that the software/ interface is not creating new saved settings that function properly after the first cut. I did some separate tests with engraving and the results were the same.

These are the results of the cuts in each video.


VIDEO 1
Created new setting, refreshed browser to correct views, clean cut for both shapes.

The video file is to large, so I have linked to my google drive.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nCjw4zTTzeHCXAlYyfHJYv1tZaC7WVeE/view?usp=sharing

VIDEO 2
Moved exact shapes cut in video one down and cut with exact same settings. The newly saved setting is out of focus/ does not cut and the custom setting cuts cleanly.

VIDEO 3
Imported shapes, deleted previously cut shapes, cut imported shapes with exact same settings. The newly saved setting is out of focus/ does not cut and the custom setting cuts cleanly.

Google Drive Link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XtPoM5Eph_MFan5ZWXHSiVTNmkdp1Cxo/view?usp=sharing