That’s what we’re being told…
Correct, at the bed extremes on material that is not perfectly flat. I have noticed that even a very slight warp or variance in thickness will have a large effect at the edges of the bed. The closer to the center of the bed the less warping/thickness variations seem to matter.
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Another reason the edge alignment is important is the way people want to use their material. When cutting something out of a large piece of material, it is best to position it near the edge to maximize the area of remaining material for future cuts. It’s a huge waste to cut something out of the middle of a sheet.
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Any test pattern would need to allow space for magnets at all corners and near the center to hold down the material. Most of our material, even straight from the package is not perfectly flat. If it is not perfectly flat across the entire bed your tests are useless.
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Very true. Flat is important. I hope to see some examples of good alignment on flat sheets of material.
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I’m not saying it’s not important. I’m only saying it’s impossible today. So testing against it is useless at this time, aside from knowing exactly how far off your particular machine is on the extremes.
I think that saying EVERY Forge is misaligned at the edges is unnecessarily pessimistic. Surely there are some good ones out there.
It’s a known…
“current software can experience a shift of up to 0.25” between preview and printing on objects placed near the far edges of the bed."
Excerpt from Production features & specifications
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For quick test a vector engrave of small crosses on a 1" grid onto paper and then a screenshot would be all that is needed. Since there is a dead band all around there should be room for some magnets.
hmmm… What were those posting guidelines again?
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Funny but I disagree, I think it’s not a bad idea, will be good feedback for both the community and the team. He could have posted it tounge in cheek but there is still no sarcasm emoji so we may never know.
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I wasn’t asking for problems, I was curious about successes.
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For whatever it’s worth I think this thread is great. I’d appreciate seeing the alignment successes and variances and it’s a nice way for people to learn how to test their machine besides.
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Huh? I guess I’m slow but I don’t see it as a troll.
I thought the thing was to highlight the number of folks where they don’t have alignment issues. We’re seeing some vocal “not working” folks which gives the impression it’s a widespread issue that potentially dooms the utility of the machine for many use cases. But we don’t know how many folks don’t have issues because they’re not represented in the posts.
This has already generated a few interesting alignment template ideas - a couple I’m going to use just to create a baseline (but I’ve got a PRU so I won’t publish the results because they’re not relevant to anyone now with the production units shipping) and then again when I get my Pro so I can plan projects appropriately and catch drift over time as I use the machine.
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You’re certainly asking about success, but given the reaction to it so far I’ve got to say your true motive seems to be in the hope that there is a lack of success shown.
It’s like your running for president, and asking how many people like the other candidate. The message is positive, but its really in the hope that no one likes the other guy.
If you have an alignment issue, do you think the support team can address that better or worse than this thread can?
If support can resolve that more efficiently than this random post, what is the point of this random post other than to try and make alignment seem like a big issue? And if alignment is a big issue, you’re right back to needing the support team.
Classic drama mongering.
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I don’t see it either. Read this as a logical follow-up from the camera alignment thread, to highlight the successes as we’d just been discussing how forums naturally tend to show more problems than successes.
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I can see that, except I would say that the made on the glowforge section is kind of fulfilling that now. All the cool stuff you are seeing was printed with the current alignment system. They are not touting it as a triumph of alignment specifically, but its showing success.
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It’s got nothing to do with that.
If I know I have an alignment issue I let Support know.
If I want to see if my alignment is within 1/4" I can do that. The way I’ve been doing that isn’t as elegant as a couple of the suggestions raised here so I’m going to use one of those going forward.
This thread is about a) showcase if you don’t have an issue (provide data counterpoints to the mis-alignment threads) and b) provide insight on how you might want to check yours.
There’s already a rumbling and a couple of comments from fairly recent posters who haven’t been on the forum a lot that the alignment issues @Tom_A and a couple of others are having are making them second guess their purchase decision. @Tom_A’s experience absolutely sucks but we’re seeing a small percentage of units being delivered with the alignment problems but don’t know whether the other 9X% have them and are unreported or don’t have them at all. A casual reader of the forum might be very worried based on seeing @Tom_A’s recent ventings.
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You have a point, but I’d guess it’s pretty likely that nobody comes to that section to see a bunch of super analytical test files and optics and discussions about stepper motors. Like, that seems to be the place where you’d put your lanterns and GOT engraves…
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