Agreed. Currently it might be the only way to get any repeatable accuracy.
So for making this vjig, what I do know right now, is:
The bed area in the UI is always the same. The image loaded from the camera can change with material depth, but is irrelevant if we ignore it.
A physical square of material on the bed shouldnt move too much if at all once placed if attached to the bed. Removing the bed will change this alignment.
The head always starts at roughly the same spot (should easily be sub-mm margin of error if that at all)
What I dont know right now:
When a full bed sized svg file is loaded into the UI will it always go to the same place
If a file always goes to the same spot when loaded (top left corner) I might be able to make it work.
So far sounds pretty promising. Like you, I really would like to specify the origin of a file with precision. Maybe itās because Iām still dragging the history of how āIāve always done itā but without a GF I canāt tell how I get repeatability without it.
Well theres a reason that is the case, and thats because it works repeatably. Right now theres just no way to do it that weve found, especially if you are scaling an image at all. Once you close the window youll never get it back to exactly the size or position it was previously at. If your browser or the app crashes, youre out of luck. If you take a piece out of the bed and realize, āhey i think I should engrave these holes a little deeperā, youre out of luck and just have to cut a whole new piece.
In a lot of the projects Ive made, especially the Bioshock one, there was a LOT of waste because I just couldnt go back and change a piece I had already made. I had to make a new one and hope it worked out, and if it didnt, I just had to make another new one. So for the ease of use in the workflow its really a tradeoff in material waste right now. Luckily this is software and there is a lot of room for change.
There was the advice of making a jig out of cardboard, but the problem is when you put a sheet of cardboard in, and cut out the perfect slot for your item, you still have to get that piece of cardboard out of the slot for your item to go into. so you have to weigh down the rest of the jig, and stab it from above and hope it doesnt shift anything on the way out. AND you have to do this EVERY TIMEā¦ you also need to cut with low enough power to keep the edges from burning/charring/burning back, but high enough power so that it goes all the way through so that when you try to pick it up, it dosnt shift the jig rendering it useless.
So theres definitely some exploratory work left to be done to find a good solution
All of those are use cases that happen to me (& likely every other laser user). Nothing ever cuts perfectly the first shot. Or even after youāve run a test cut and tweaked the settings. Being able to re-do a part of what Iāve done already (your deeper holes example) is something I do as well. Itās the difference between needing to re-do the whole project or just a few more minutes with another pass in the machine.
Part of the reason I went CAD/CAM was for the precision on the second time through with something. Otherwise Iād be an artist with hand-tools and Iām way too old to be that
It should go without saying, but please keep us posted on additional testing or software improvements that get released to your GF for this capability. Itās looking like an issue for my typical use.
Thanks - I hadnāt gotten to that one yet. That does sound encouraging and it will be interesting to see what you think of that approach after youāve had a chance to try it outā¦