I just started a Home automation thread if anyone wants to discuss it there.
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I actually recently did this exact thing… First I cut a slot, placed the item, then engraved. The engraving was off to the right by like 5mm. It was really sad!
It sounds like something shifted between your cut and engrave steps. You may not have noticed it (obviously). But if you run the same job over and over again without changing anything, the laser will hit the same spot every time. (Over the course of several hours, it’s possible it could change slightly, but that’s not what we’re talking about here.) So very likely either the tray, or the head, the material, or all of the above shifted by “like 5mm.”
The alternative would be that your laser is firing randomly. Which I don’t think we’ve seen before. In other words, if you ran a job and then did absolutely nothing but run the job again, it should burn the exact same spots… but yours doesn’t do that. Is that the case?!
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I really don’t think it was an error be on my part. I’ve used various laser cutters for years and have always been successful doing this kind of thing. I didn’t touch the file, didn’t touch the preview, and didn’t touch the material/crumb tray.
Left: cut and engraved in one pass, it also hit another cut edge because it was apparently too close… Camera preview didn’t alert me to that (looked like there was plenty of clearance); unchecked camera distortion? Right: cut, stop, then engraved with mask removed. Sad burger kitty.
This machine really needs to be able to run from 0,0… Independent from the camera. I don’t know how, but I need need need it
If you wouldn’t mind explaining in more detail… See if I’ve it correct here.
One file… You opened it in the GFUI. You cut first by disabling the engrave step I’m guessing. Then, without doing anything else at all, you enabled the engrave step and disabled the cut step. Is that correct?
You brought up the masking. When did you remove the masking?
Thanks!
Yes, what was described is correct. I removed the masking prior to running the job again with the engrave enabled instead.
So then isn’t that where the change likely happened? You physically touched the material and removed the mask. It seems like it could have easily shifted things by 5mm. No?
No. it didn’t. I left the entire piece of material in there to serve as template and was careful not to budge it.
Okay. Then I’m out of ideas. Have you been able to replicate the issue?
Sounds like this oughta be a support thread so they can check out the lid camera pics.