I’m sorry you are experiencing frustration.
Some things that made everything seem easier for me …
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Measure the material with calipers … enter that number for the thickness. Sometimes even proofgrade can be a bit over or under the standard.
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Make some of these pins:
Honeycomb bed holdown pins
Press gently down on your material once it’s in the bed of the Glowforge. If there is any bounce anywhere … adding these pins to secure the material makes a HUGE difference. (Sometimes people use magnets to secure their material).
If you are raising your material to make it closer to the beam … the Glowforge will get a distorted view. Telling it the correct thickness will make it work properly.
Hope that helps!