Glowforge won't let me print in top left corner

Please correct me if I’m wrong but if I put a 12 x 20 sheet of material on there, I should be able to start my cuts in the corner if it’s lined up in the left top corner of the honeycomb?

It seems to cut the first inch off the left side and top no matter where I put it on the bed! Even if I align it with the lower right corner, it seems to cut an inch off the top and inch off the left.

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This might help:

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The maximum cut area (as described in the email each recipient has received) is 19.5" wide by 11" deep. The GF is different than other cutters (it’s not a malfunction)-- it doesn’t have a 0,0 point per se. The cut area is centered under the lid camera, so there’s always a margin around all 4 sides.

BTW, Welcome to the forum!

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Here are some details regarding that, from November '16:

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Ah okay. That kinda makes me a little sad but thanks for the explanation. I thought that you could still line it up in the corner or somewhere but just not print in the bottom right.

At least I know it’s not broken now! :wink:

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We all wish it would go right out to the edges but save the scraps, you’ll be amazed at the things you’ll make from 1" scraps.

Also, make some spacers so when you feed it something smaller than 20" you can cut right out to the edge.

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I am confused by this thread. If the current cut area is 19.5" x 11" but the honey comb is 18" x 20.4" why can’t you shift the corner into the cut area and just lose 0.1" instead of 0.5"?

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Yeah… That is exactly what I was going to try and suggest.

@mokey, I think your previous laser experience might be tripping you up a little. You want to ignore the edges of the tray. They don’t really mean much relative to the laserable area. You want to align completely visually within the GFUI, which is probably a little counter-intuitive to somebody with your experience. And I can understand why you might not like to work that way. But you’ll get used to it.

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You don’t want to let the material extend over the edge of the tray. If the gantry hits it, it can jump the tracks.

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It somehow seemed to give me mostly the same amount of unusable material wherever I put it on the honeycomb, which is what I thought seemed weird. But it seems like it’s okay to push it all the way to the bottom, past the honeycomb. I realized if I do that I get better results.

The whole reason I asked is because it just didn’t seem right to me and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t broken or something. But now I know that’s just how it works, so yay, forum!

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The bounds should be fixed relative to the bed, not the object, so yes it would be weird if it actually does that.

Depending on the design, I usually cut the board down to 17-18" to consolidate the unreachable into a single piece.

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And the useable area is different for an engrave versus a cut. So an engrave in the extreme top left will give different margins in the GFUI than a cut or score.

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I like being able to have material butted up against something and this is exactly what I do. It’s just become habit now.

Congrats on getting the machine btw!

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I use a story stick I made that I use to push my material up to the left side which moves the edge of the material to the edge of the cutting area

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Great advice here - thanks all.

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