Cutting slightly off

Hello!! I am a little worried… I’m cutting some cake toppers in the proffered maple wood and the cutting on the last few have been off just a hair. Its not cutting the exact svg file I have uploaded. The size is the same, just cutting is off just enough that I notice that its not level. I am designing these out of Illustrator. Any thoughts on what is going on?

Do you mean that the cut is not happening on the material exactly where it’s showing on the screen?

Sorry, I wasn’t clear-- it shows up fine on screen, but when its printed there are areas that a slightly off where it has been cut.

Printout is to the right. Can you see the difference?

photo didn’t upload-- will try and repost

IMG_7218

I’m not sure what I’m looking at there, but if you changed the material, did you change the material height in the Unknown Materials column?

Or are you just concerned that one of them cut a little higher on the wood than the other?

In Illustrator, did you align everything to the base?

Hi and thanks for being patient with me! Yes, so the cuts are off slightly so I’m not sure if the calibration is off? I’ve also noticed that when I finish cutting (on the screen) the cut lines are offset by a little. Please see screen shot. In Illustrator, everything is aligned perfectly.

Oh, yes, that is perfectly normal for right now - you’ll want to just make sure that you leave yourself about a 1/4" of leeway. They have to make an adjustment for the fisheye effect of the camera in the lid, and it can be off by up to a quarter of an inch.

Nothing wrong with the file, and you’ve actually got really good alignment with that shot! :slightly_smiling_face:

Ok thanks! But I’m still concerned that the cuts are off. It’s only off on the stick part of the cake topper by like 1/16. Not terrible on my script lettering, but really looks bad on the straight edge cuts. Hmmmm… any thoughts on why thats happening? Thanks!

So here is a print one I did last week and the other just now ( same file used ). Everything looks the same except the width of the stick on the topper. Its weird. I wonder if my machine is messed up?Kind of hard to tell in the pics.

IMG_7219IMG_7220

I can’t really tell, there’s nothing to measure with. Do you have a set of digital calipers? (If not you need to get one.) And you always want to use it when you are cutting anything other than Proofgrade materials with a good QR code. (Enter the material thickness value in inches into the Unknown Materials slot.)

Is your material warped at all? That can affect how it cuts.

Thanks for the advice! I don’t have a set of calipers. I will get that today. I have only used the GF proof grade materials so far. The boards so far have not been warped. Unfortunately, I bought a bunch of boards from them recently and several were sent warped. My GF also did something weird where it said it didn’t detect the material ( it was from them ) so not sure what that is all about. I’m also not able to refresh the bed-- ever. hmmm…

Cut yourself a wad of these Honeycomb Pins - they are fantastic for keeping the boards flat while they are cutting.

The QR code sticker can have a glare hit it sometimes which keeps the sticker from reading - you can just use the dropdown menu at the top of the left column to enter the settings.

Have you seen any of the tutorials yet? We’ve got a bunch of really good ones that will help you get going with the Glowforge quickly.

I like to suggest reading them in this order - they give a good background for most of the problems folks run into at first:

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You are amazing!

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Not so much! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Thanks so much for all your help, @Jules!

@Jen, I see you’ve opened a new post about this issue, so I will continue working with you there. I’m going to close this post.