Glowforge precision limit?

I’ve forgot are you on PRU or Production unit?

.01mm is .00039" or roughly 1/20th the average kerf width depending on the material and its consistency.

Don’t think you’re going to be able to hit that reliably or repeatably even if you could adjust for it.

When you get into .0005" territory on a machine process, you’re getting into some extremely fine (and very expensive) tolerances. It’s going to be virtually impossible to tag that with any laser.

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Maple ply

Sauce?

Good to know, and my expectation.

Production baby woooooooo

Great info here, which highlights why I made this thread. What should I expect to hit consistently with the GF? That way I know to just jump to the nearest tenth or whatever.

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I go to hundredths because although my calipers display 3 digits, I’m not convinced that’s true resolution vs just available digits in the display and because I’m not that good with it :slight_smile:

i did create a little slot calibration tool with different sizes to see what works with a piece of material. Then I cut & paste the slot that works into my design as needed. Ditto for finger joints of some handy sizes (1/4" to 1" wide and 3mm, 1/8, 6mm, 1/4" thick). Came in handy this week when I realized my medium Draftboard is 1/8" and not 3mm :smile:

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That actually depends in part on the materials, speed and power settings used so it’s somewhat variable, because any variance in material, power or speed can affect the width of the kerf, which then affects the overall dimension of the cut material.

As far as the motion of the head/gantry itself, I would not count on it being able to resolve anything tighter than 1/1000" (.025mm) which is still pretty tight, almost negligible for people not making machine-fit parts.

Personally, I would not worry about compensating for anything tighter than the kerf width. I have seen people mentioning on this forum kerf numbers like .007"(0.1778mm) to .009"(0.2286mm) and that’s slim too! I mean, close and zero your calipers then open to those dimensions. The gap is tiny, it’s almost not worth compensating for in some cases.

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My kerf in Baltic Birch, PG maple ply, cherry ply and Draftboard comes out to .007-.008" I haven’t measured other PG materials. I tend to use .01" which is generally snug but not gindingly tight and will allow for thin CA to insure long term fit.

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I made a small F360 file that is nothing but two small box-jointed pieces ( I call it the kerfinator) for testing with different kerfs as how a joint fits is more important than what calipers say. Most wood products have come in right around 0.21mm

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Double ditto. :grinning:

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Here’s a couple, but if you search for “@dan 0.001” there’s a few more.

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Marking this as the solution unless a GF staffer updates to say it’s different from this. Thanks.

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It’s correct - roughly .001" or .02 mm.

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When I am making friction fit tabs and slots for acrylic, I regularly adjust in increments of .001" to make the joint tighter. Some of that depends on thickness of acrylic and exactly what I shapes of cuts I am doing, but it does make a difference.

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Yep, the issue was I was converting from inches to millimeters and doing ultra tiny increments. Knowing the limit is great though as I can more quickly adjust to something I know the machine is able to handle.

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For anyone wondering about the accuracy of your caliper, try checking with a good set of feeler gauges.

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And if you are wondering about the accuracy of your feeler gauges, get a decent micrometer.

(it is turtles all the way down…)

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Good advice.
"… all the way down to what?" :rofl:

subatomic particles

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Hehehe, :grin:
That was in reference to an elderly woman who believed the world was supported on the back of a turtle, when asked “well what is the turtle standing on?” she replied “You don’t fool me young man, it’s turtles all the way down!” To which the next question the lecturer thought to ask was “All the way down to what?”… but decides against pursuing it.

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My jaw dropped when you said this! One of my close friends who was a tool-and-die maker and worked in the instrument shop on campus would tell me this! He also would say, the more you know the harder things are!

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The ole Münchhausen Trilemma. That Baron, what a joker!

I thought that I was introduced to the infinite-turtle trope by Terry Pratchett. Wikipedia tells me that I heard about much earlier, from Dr. Seuss.

Since the 1980s or so the story or trope has been so well known that frequent references were made in pop culture and popular literature. Many variants now have a “scientist” replying to “a little old lady”, the scientist variously taking the identity of Arthur Stanley Eddington, Thomas Huxley, Linus Pauling, or Carl Sagan, etc., although in the 1970s the “Hindu” or “Oriental” background still seems to have received more frequent mention.

The parable is also referenced by Dr. Seuss in his 1950 book Yertle the Turtle. When Yertle topples from atop his turtle tower he sees and is told “It is Turtles all the way down.” source

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