I sent this into support, but weird problem this morning. After a struggle to get my GF online (support suggested rebooting my router which did fix it). I ran into this strange effect where the image sort of fades as it goes up the anodized tag (as if there was a graduated tone). The large text at the bottom was all one color (not sure which it isn’t centered as it was on the camera image)
If you spin the image & the blank over 180 degrees does it do the same with the fade happening on the Team 2017 (on the top) this time?
If it does then it’s not the image but probably the laser. If it doesn’t then I’d look into what’s special about the image.
My money is on it either working as expected or the fade near the top possibly indicative of a tube power issue. Try and break the image into a top & bottom half, engrave the bottom, shut the GF down for a few hours and try again with the top half. That should tell you if it’s an issue with the tube after it’s in use.
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This question is outside our team’s scope. I’ve moved it to Beyond the Manual so the discussion can continue there.
Look in the little hole at the neck of the shirt. The “Co” is in perfect focus and engraved very clearly, while the rest of the word is not. I would imagine that the tag that you are engraving is not flat. The Date is clear and it progressively gets worse toward the top.
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so we know that the gf goes from front to back so it looks like you lost power into the burn…
so quickly dismissed as out of scope very disappointing. not even any probing questions
sure its not PG but that’s not the point PG or not the laser should have maintained consistent output
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yeah, the sparkle seemed less when I was watching…
Redo this print on a bit of PG material. If it happens again support will actually help.
Pretty disappointing @dan that issues like this aren’t even looked at by support.
Even the suggestion I gave of seeing if it happens on PG would have been helpful from staff.
Also, if GF staff really don’t support anything other then PG material. you should probably consider remove any promotional footage showing it cutting cardboard as you don’t sell a PG version and it could be seen as misleading.
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or chocolate, or seaweed, any other xyz’s… ya supports rapid fire out of scopes is getting on my nerves… really gives the impression of use PG or we are going to make life hard for you
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Even as big of cheer leader as I am, I have to agree that some of the support staff are being too quick to play the out of scope card.
At the very least you could have suggested trying it on some 
@dannyc.
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So potential hardware fails (e.g. power drop in the tube) must be replicated with PG or Support won’t help? So it seems we should keep some Draftboard in stock just in case we have a failure & with PG settings regardless of the problem.
That should be spiked out in the doc or warranty somewhere so people know not to bother you unless a problem is replicable in PG and post directly to here so they can get support from the community instead.
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Once I had the machine simply provide very low power to the laser. It was providing some power, but not what it was supposed to. Odd that it was also when engraving aluminum, but I doubt that was the cause. I re-ran the job in place and it ran absolutely fine.
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I’ve said elsewhere that most anomalies are just that, anomalies.
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I put these two together a little differently. Is it possible that the crumb tray wasn’t flat? If it was bumped up in the front, that would put the bottom of the tag closer the autofocus would have adjusted to that, right? Then as the engrave moved back, it would be getting more and more out of focus.
Just a thought.
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you would think but autofocus is not enabled
My understanding is that initial autofocus is enabled. Continuous autofocus is not
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yes but that is only at center point of the project not the whole material so if your at a slant or a warp you will get really bad results
I have had several PG’s that had a warp that I needed to exacto
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If the same thing doesn’t happen when performed on Proofgrade (or any other material) the simplest answer is a variation in the coating on the tag. Perhaps its thicker in one spot - not evenly anodized, if that is feasible.
First thing I would do would be to run another test on some other kind of material to see if the issue repeats, after making sure that the text is all the same exact shade of black. It’s easy for that to be missed - there are some dark grays that look almost black and it’s easy to click a different shade. If it does, you have a problem with the power and need to contact support directly to let them know. That unit is a PRU, correct?
If the problem does not repeat on other material, I’d try a different tag.
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Henryhbk
Could you remove the material the tag is sitting on and place the aluminum on the tray. The Autofocus may be seeing the white material instead of the tag, just basing this on the comments already mentioned.
Let me try to make my thought process clearer:
- assuming that the tag itself is not curved
- to my mind, the tube losing power in a seemingly continuous fashion during the engrave seems an unlikely thing to assume.
- if the material is susceptible to small changes in focus (which the comment about a curved surface suggested) then it would appear likely that the tag was tilted.
- it doesn’t matter if the measured autofocus was at the middle or the start of the engrave operation, it would remain fixed–just as you said when you assumed I was talking about continuous autofocus.
- what might tilt the tag front to back?
Hence I suggested the crumb tray might not have been flat. This has been mentioned elsewhere as a factor in prints going awry. Such an issue seems more likely to me than diminished power without further evidence.
in the early PRU’s this was a noted issue actually
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