I am trying to engrave dice. I have created a jig to make the alignment better, but it’s still not working properly. I have tried to “guess” where to put the design to allow for the alignment being off. My alignments are always a bit off, but it generally doesn’t matter so much, because I am nearly always cutting out something from a larger piece, so I always allow enough space for errors. However, with dice, there isn’t much room for error and I getting frustrated burning product for no reason. I seems like I am generally a 1/4" to a 1/2" off of camera alignment. I couldn’t honestly say if it’s always been off, as I had a deep learning curve when I first received the GF. I can only say that it seems as though it’s been this way from the beginning. I wasn’t really sure if this alignment problem was standard with all machines or just with some of the machines, but I can say that I have read about the new suggested software to improve the alignment which may only be only offered to pro machines (I have a basic) and at an additional cost. This is super frustrating to me, as I own both the Cricut and Silhouette Cameo and neither charges to cut with registration marks, the software just comes that way. Silhouette Cameo also offers a picture mat as an alignment tool that’s available for about $30 for 2. I mention this because both companies also offer great design software that is included with their products (you can upgrade to Silhouette business edition software for about $100) and designs to cut from .50 (both Silhouette and Cricut have over 30K cut files available) and commercial design licenses from about $3.00 to $8.00. GF has almost no design files available and what is available is pretty pricey. Clearly I understand that the GF laser costs a lot more to build than blade cutting machines, but I’m not sure why the need to have such a different price gap and availability of designs and not to have any included design software. GF also offers a fairly limited assortment of cutting materials, which I had hoped would improve by this point. I am guessing by your beta testing comments that you are still focused on improving the GF itself, but I am hoping that improvements to material options is in the works. It would great to have at least the most basic design options from the GF interface, such as grouping un-grouping, aligning, etc. Its frustrating to always have to jump back to AI for something simple. Just my suggestions and maybe you might not find it fair to compare, but after owning the other products for several years (both under $300), I keep finding myself comparing and wondering why can’t I do this or that on the GF? I appreciate your time and any help or suggestions for these alignment issues and I hope you don’t mind me venting my suggestions.
Thank you, Amy