I get an error mediate everytime I try to “set focus” on my laser. i’ve cleaned all the lenses and followed some support tips from other members but i’m still having the issue. I’m in ca and the last error message was at 10:08 I believe.
In the last photo, is the little window on the left just super clean, or is it missing? I’m not sure whether that would cause the error, but there should be something there!
it’s just super clean! thank you for trying.
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How thick is the material you’re trying to focus on and are you using the crumb tray or not?
for the photo examples I am not using the crumb tray and the material is 1” thick.
but this is also happening with proof grade materials with the crumb tray in.
Without the crumb tray, 1" material is outside of the focus area. You will need to elevate your material.
With the 1 inch thick material are you elevating it up until the surface is less than 1/2 inch from the laser?
The proof grade material shouldn’t give you this error unless the red laser dot that measures the thickness falls off the edge or into a cut out area. Do you watch to see where it strikes your material? Bright lights shining into the GF could also obstruct the focus feature as well.
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I am elevating to get it to the right height using some draft board.
the laser is showing up on the proof grade stuff and seems to print fine but I still get the error when I select the “set focus” option.
Support will have to look into that for you. They should weigh in soon as posting here has raised a support ticket.
Hello @forgedbyrawhoney - I’m sorry to hear you’ve run into this trouble.
I extracted the most recent logs from your printer and can see the printer running into some snags during focusing. With the material being used and the crumb tray being removed it’s possible that the autofocus feature is simply missing the raised section of the material.
Could you try running one of these prints using the Set Focus feature to place the focus target directly on your material, and let me know if that helps?
Hi @forgedbyrawhoney I just wanted to check in and see if you were still in need of any assistance as it’s been a while since we’ve heard from you. Please let us know!
Thank you for checking in! I tried the set focus feature and it didn’t help.
Hi @forgedbyrawhoney. Thank you for getting back to us! I’m sorry to hear that you’re still running into some trouble when you try to use the Set Focus function for recent prints. To help us as we review the updated log files from your Glowforge, can you let us know any dates or times to reference with print attempts that ran into the focus trouble?
Also, you may have already seen this from our Support page, but I wanted to include this for easier reference to double check if any of the below may be affecting the Set Focus attempts:
- Click at least 1/2” from the edge of your material. Set focus uses a red dot laser to take the measurement of the distance to the surface of your material. If you place the red target too close to the edge of your material, the measurement may miss your material or land on the edge and be inaccurate.
- There is only one Set Focus point at a time. If you chose a new point, it will remove the old one. Opening the lid also erases the Set Focus point.
- The Set Focus point is also used for focusing. The height of the Set Focus point will be used to focus the beam of the laser during printing.
- Using masking on clear or reflective materials. Clear or reflective materials can produce inaccurate measurements. The protective masking on Proofgrade materials like Clear Acrylic helps ensure accurate measurements.
- Manual settings. Sometimes you may want to manually focus the laser to produce a different result. By default, your Glowforge will use the measurement from Set Focus to focus the laser beam. If you prefer to focus manually instead, the value you enter into the settings of each step will be used instead of the Set Focus measurement.
I’ll look forward to hearing back. Thank you!
Hi @forgedbyrawhoney. It’s been a little while since my last response and wanted to check in about the Set Focus and if you had any recent prints you wanted us to take a look at to help. Let us know and we’ll be here to help. Thanks!
Hi @forgedbyrawhoney. I haven’t seen any recent activity, so I’ll go ahead and close this thread. Feel free to start a new thread, or write us at support@glowforge.com, if you require any further assistance. We’ll be happy to help. Thanks!