Engraving Larger Depths (Removing crumb tray)

[withersde]

Hello,
I am an artist that laser engraves on small panels.
To my understanding, the Glowforge depth options are always considering the depth of the crumb tray itself. I always need to take my tray out to engrave on thicker panels.

I am curious if there is a better way to set the depth of what you are engraving without having to subtract the depth of the usual crumb tray… Id like to just tell the machine exactly what depth my object is without having to do the math and trick the machine into considering that something is sitting on the tray.

Apologies if I have overlooked something, I am a new Glowforge owner! Thank you

[evansd2]

There are lots of ways to do this, they have been discussed all over the forum. It can be hard to figure out what to search for, but here are a couple of options:

Cutting Without the Crumb Tray - The NO MATH Edition

There’s a great tutorial here on cutting without the crumb tray when you want to work with thicker material. If you want to know the numbers and theory behind it, go read that first, and then come back. Thank you, @henryhbk! This method uses the digital calipers you should already have, and the not-used-often-enough ZERO button. We’re going to go through the steps from the tutorial above, but without any math or writing down numbers. The first step is to find the height of your crumb tray’s su…

Using "set focus" with material over .5" (No tray)

I’ve seen this question come up a few times recently and wanted folks to get the newest info. The new “set focus” feature has really changed things for working with thick material! If you have something over .5" to put in your GF there’s no longer a need for complicated math or tray calculations. All you HAVE to do is make sure your materiel reaches above the height of the tray and is the cutting range and the GF will do the rest. Here’s what to do… Remove the tray For material taller than 1…

Tutorial: How to cut without the Crumb Tray (Honeycomb)

Tutorial: How to cut objects too thick to have the honeycomb in place The GlowForge has a maximum material thickness it can cut through, but there is a maximum thickness you can even put on the honeycomb (crumb tray) even if you are surface engraving as the laser has a limited focus range of 0.01" - 0.4" *** above the surface of the honeycomb at the time of this tutorial. But let’s say you wanted to engrave something thicker that fits quite nicely inside the GlowForge but not with the crumb tray…

and I think what you’re looking for:

No-Math Focus Ruler

Leveraging the recently-released Set Focus tool, I’ve designed a tool to help place materials when the crumb tray has been removed, no maths required. If your material is between the lines while resting on the bottom of your GF – not the crumb tray, you should be able to use Set Focus in the UI. If the top of your material is below the bottom line, use your favorite method (sheets of PG, tiles, 3-D printed stands, matching sets of trained hedgies, etc.) to elevate it and recheck. Repeat until …

[marmak3261]

The new Set Focus feature really helps here. Can be an initial challenge if you don’t have a rough estimate of material thickness for the initial lid focus.

@dwardio’s custom gauge is good. I put some tick marks on it for quick estimation of height.

[withersde]

Thanks for this! Would you share your updated version?

[geek2nurse]

It’s in the post you replied to. Right click and save.