Cutting/engraving to edge of bed

Hi all, so I had a shot at the second piece ‘snap and store box’. And basically everything was cut out except 1 picture for one side of the box… it said not in the print area but the cut was fine and it was within the cut area as well as the art work. So then I decided to rescan and put the side back in to add my artwork which then although I alingned it correctly on the screen came out off alignment?? You can see in the pics, left one was automatically done and right one I aligned separately.
Any help sorting that out please.:slightly_smiling_face:image|666x500

Does your GF normally align prints to the camera that accurately? Depending on where in the bed, mine is usually off by around 1/4", and from what people are saying in the forum, that sounds pretty normal… i.e. if you want to align your print to an existing object, then you need to make a jig.

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See https://glowforge.com/support/topic/troubleshooting/alignment – “Should you finish all of these steps, and find that you have an alignment error of more than 1/4”, please contact us so we can investigate."

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The camera image is not necessarily an accurate representation of what is on the bed. Your best bet for perfect alignment is to etch/engrave and cut in one file without moving the material. Or you can flip pieces of the material over by using the rest as a jig, but still using the same file.

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Thank you for your reply. I’m not sure how a jig is created to be honest? But other problem is the GFUI is cuting fine to the edge but not engraving to the edge any ideas on that?

Thank you for this. We will go through it tomorrow. :+1:

Thank you for your reply. Basically it’s leaving an inch off the cut area to the left before engraving but it’s fine to cut a line in that area… confused why it’s allowing to cut but not engrave?

As for the alignment of the camera I had to rescan the bed to engrave what the first print missed out which is what’s in the pic. But as you said the camera is not accurate so il go through the link which Jim sent and see if it gets better hopefully.

The area of the bed accessible for engraving is smaller than that for cutting. The head has to have room to slow down before hitting the edge.

If you’ve set your material type / width and selected settings for a piece, and it still shows as gray on the screen, then it’s outside the bounds and won’t be cut/engraved.

To cut a jig, say, after you had cut out the box piece but still needed to engrave the unicorn on it, here’s what you could do: Put some cardboard or draftboard, etc. in your machine inside the engravable area and choose the material (or set the height, if it’s a non-PG material). Set the unicorn to “ignore” and enter cut settings for the box piece, and cut it out. Then leave the main piece of cardboard in place (it’s now your jig), and without moving it, insert the box part into the cutout you just made. Set the material back to whatever the box is made of, “ignore” the cut line, and engrave the unicorn.

Here’s a more thorough treatment of the subject: Alignment

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That’s great… very useful. Thank you very much. Next time I’m using the Glowforge will put this in practice. :+1:

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