Hello friends!
After a 5 hour long print… I realized I’m missing a square on my scrabble board. In an attempt to save my ass, I’d like to try my luck at printing my last block. Problem is… my glowforge is hella dark, even after cleaning the lens it’s going to be very hard to line it up.
Any tips?
Put paper or masking in the spot you intend to engrave, set the power very low and see if it is aligned properly. Keep adjusting until it is correct, then remove the masking and go for it.
If you’ve run the camera calibration, with most machines, it seems the very center of the bed is the most accurate. This is what I would do:
@raymondking32 has good suggestions. 
Another thing that might work, if you’re lazy like me, is to delete everything but the board outline and that one square from your artwork, cut the outline out of a piece of cardboard, then use the cardboard as a jig – make sure it doesn’t get moved while you fit your board into it, then the square should fall right into place.
This isn’t lazy, it’s the best most accurate and fastest method.
Use a corner jig, you don’t need to cut the entire outline out of cardboard.
any reason why it’s still so dark?
Are your lights covered in residue?
cleaned both the lens and the lights… it’s not supposed to be this dark, right?
Hard to tell but if you have and wipes kicking around this is what my bed looks like with a few of them on it. might be able to compare?
I used a jig, but when i set my board it was way off…
I manually adjusted and prayed to the glowgods, but no luck here
back under the laser …
If the tile is in the correct position in the border you cut with the jig it will be in the correct place regardless of what you see in the camera. assuming you did not move the jig when placing the work piece in
ugh, i just didn’t trust it 
i do it all the time, 
can’t say to go for it but if it was me i would lol. Its all about acceptable risk i guess. Try it but really low power with some tape over the spot? see if it is trying to work in the right area just to double check? also dont forget to set the cut for the jig to ignore before you start. And if you moved the image on the bed after cutting the jig you should do that step over again and not move the image.
really kicking myself for not doing the tape trick - ugh!
oh well, lesson learned - plus i changed the engrave settings and now it’s only 2 hours instead of 5
Thanks everyone for the help! and @evansd2 for helping me in the DM with the little jigs
Yeah, you have to trust the jig. The camera is a big liar.
I would love to know the end result here…
after manually adjusting it after putting it in with the jig (i did not trust the camera)
I zoomed in 1000% and reset the focus to the square
on the bright side… i now i can test removing the soot from this board without losing contrast of the burn
Just sand it with 300 to 400 grit sandpaper to get the burn marks off, you won’t lose any contrast at all. Just take a soft bristled brush(I use a paint brush) to knock the sawdust out of the scores and engraves when you’re done sanding.
It goes really quickly.
today i learned my glowforge, light, and bathroom switch is on the same line… and using them all at the same time will cause the breaker to trip…here’s to try #3
