Focus Height and Auto Focus

[andersam37]

Does Auto Focus have veto power over Focus Height?

I am SOOO confused!

I can enter the thickness of my material manually, but I feel like auto focus is just going to do whatever it wants anyways.
(Auto focus is awesome and i love it, but sometimes I want to override it and cut at my own specified focus height.)

What have you found to be true?

[dklgood]

You can set your own height. For acrylic (and other applications) it is sometimes advantageous to defocus the laser for a smoother engrave. Manually setting the material height accomplishes this.

[jbmanning5]

Here’s the setup:

If material height and focal height are set to the same value, it uses autofocus via the scan before the job.

If the material height and focal height are different values, it still scans, but it respects the actual focal height entry.

The key is that the fields have to be different or it defaults to auto.

[deirdrebeth]

What he said - also (just in case it’s news) there are 2 places to put that info:

[Ratel]

@andersam37

sometimes I want to override it and cut at my own specified focus height. )

That bottom one that @deirdrebeth shows circled is the ultimate authority…it will override all others. But it has to be entered manually for every operation.

[eflyguy]

My experience is that even after entering the “known, measured height” for my material, sometimes the auto focus height kicks in, measures “whatever”, and that option (circled above) is now greyed out, and no distance is displayed.

It’s happened several times, and as I have no idea what it came up with, or where it measured, that the job may not “print” as desired. So far, I’ve been lucky.

[andersam37]

I have an “1/8” Baltic Birch" profile i’ve saved. Are you saying that for each operation I would I need to select my saved profile, erase the focus height and then type it in again for every cut? Thanks

[Ratel]

The rules for Focus Height and how it is chosen are outlined here:

Something wrong with some vectors and power settings

@jules and @jbmanning5 have it! Just to summarize: When using Proofgrade, the Material Thickness is provided, and for non-Proofgrade, it is the number entered manually into the “Use Uncertified Material” box. “Scanning Your Material” generates the Detected Height Focus Height is a manual setting This leaves us with 3 separate numbers: Material Thickness Detected Height Focus Height Which number is used for focus follows these simple rules: If Material Thickness is dif…

As far as the saved settings go…I’m not sure, I’ve never tested it. I mainly use it for power and speed settings. (You could do that with a couple of quick tests though.)

You said you wanted to over-ride the auto-focus sometimes. That’s just how to accomplish it.

[ElsieH]

If we are talking about saving the focus height in saved settings, yes it can be done. I have settings saved for defocused scores at .5 inches. When I select it, that is what is in the focus height. I can override it by typing auto, and then it will use what it gets from the autofocusing.