Focus Height

Bug it so that GF knows the the machine is working different from your expectations.

Weird might just be weird, but it could be bad too :slight_smile:

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To be fair, like I said, my design would have gone off-material. As such, it may have been within the frame of the design. So I think this one’s on me. Really my point was that it didn’t seem to care about the depth it detected.

it’s not about being unfair. You had your design placed, it measured away from the material and started anyway. That might be correct behavior, it might not. You could be saving me some grief next week :slight_smile:

@dan loves to reassure us that they’d rather have the bug report than not.

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Oh, fine… To save you grief. :slight_smile:

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Thanks for the feedback… cc @Tony (who will not be surprised by it :slight_smile: )

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I believe that if we can’t figure out the correct height, we use the thickness as a best-guess proxy.

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Definitely.

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This is why we don’t label our material as 0.25"… people expect it to be .25"! We refer to it as “thin”, “medium”, etc. and include dimensions in the description. We believe expert users will find the information they need, and novice users won’t be mislead by the confusion between nominal thickness and actual thickness.

It sets the focus height to the measured average thickness of the material.

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every instance of this that I have encountered, this wasnt the case. but then again, I only noticed when it was wrong… sooooo

Makes sense.

But the GFUI refers to it as such.
And I think I get what you’re saying… Like a 2x4 isn’t 2x4 and 1x isn’t 1"?

In that case, the lumber is cut at those dimensions but then is dried after the fact so it can vary pretty substantially.

Nominal vs Actual would be more like Schedule 40 Pipe. A 3" pipe is called 3", but is actually 3.5" OD… and you can count on it always being 3.5" OD except for very small manufacturing tolerances.

only partially. a 2x4 used to be two inches by four inches. the lumber in my house measures a full 2 x 4 because it’s old.

the big thing is that lumber used to be cut at 2 x 4, then dried, then planed, and every board would end up with nonstandard dimensions. today even before planing, modern boards aren’t quite 2 x 4 inches. then they’re dried and planed to end up at a standard set of dimensions every time. it doesn’t vary at all, or at least, it isn’t supposed to.

nominal vs actual doesn’t apply to schedule 40 at all. every pipe i’ve seen has listed the exterior and interior dimensions.

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When you tell someone you need a 3" Sch 40 pipe, the 3" number is considered the nominal size. It is understood by default (if you are familiar with pipe sizes) that you are getting 3.50" OD with .216" wall and the 3" has no relevance to any actual dimension of that material. That is the definition of nominal.

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uh, the interior diameter is 3.07 inches. that’s pretty close, dude.

my whole point is that nobody talks about actual vs nominal in pipes, i wasn’t suggesting there were no discrepancies. actual vs nominal is used in lumber discussions, however.

Right. Everyone specifies the nominal pipe size, plus the actual schedule for ASME Schedule piping. Nobody specifies actual OD or ID because that’s just not the convention the industry follows.

Tubing on the other hand is specified by OD and wall thickness, but tubing is not pipe.

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@mpipes… going by your name it is hard to tell if you are actual or nominal

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Hum, but given the ‘m’ in ‘mpipes’ it’s probably metric.

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nope… marginal. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

It’s just my first name initial, and last name. Nothing more meaningful or creative. :slight_smile:

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.197" is 5mm. Good to see GF sell metric materials :slightly_smiling_face:

@dan, when you are cutting say 5mm material and you enter 5mm does that actually put the beam focus at the surface or does it indicate the user wants to cut through 5mm and perhaps set the beam focus half way through?

Why is the focus height limited to 10mm and not 1/2".

Yes, normally lasers focus to the center of the material thickness. At least with respect to metal sheet and plate.

I was surprised that this has not been raised in this thread since it seems relevant. Perhaps I missed it. Or perhaps the GF works differently.

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