I’m opening this since my last post was closed by support with no resoloution. Here is the link to that post.
A member of staff closed the issue after saying. " jazStaff18h
We’ve seen this happen in the past when the design has a double outline, which causes your Glowforge to cut your print out twice - that might be something to check for. We’ll take a look at the settings, too. Thank you for letting us know! "
I have a few issues with this, along with my original issue, which has not been properly addressed.
It assumes the problem is my file. (which it is not)
The post is then closed, not allowing me to reply.
There has been no resolution or no real apparent desire to resolve this issue.
This is a bad customer experience. A sensible response would have been to ask me to print out something from the gf catalog with their settings so we could rule out user error. Then, I would expect they would wait for a reply to confirm if the issue was persisting. In lieu of that, in order to remove the question of my design, I did a cut out of the rocket cupcake topper that comes from GF. I am still having the same issue. Again, this issue is from the underside of the cut.
The problem is either with the GF proofgrade material or the machine or the software.
Thank you to everyone that attempted to help me the first time.
I hope the GF team can do a better job to help me resolve this issue a second time around.
You did the right thing posting again regarding the issue not being resolved and the ticket prematurely closed. Hopefully either @dan or @Rita can help you with the fact that your first ticket was closed unresolved. Just a thought, I think you hit on a very good idea of cutting something out of the catalog on a piece of proofgrade acrylic and see what happens. That should be the obvious next step to take design issues out of the mix. I plan on working with a lot of acrylic, so I’m curious as to your results. I can say, last night I was cutting some two-tone acrylic from instructables and had some of the same issues you’ve seen because my settings were way too hot, once I got them dialed in (since it wasn’t proofgrade) the problems went away, but using proofgrade you should never have that problem.
You said it’s from the backside. Flashback from the honeycomb? Might raise the material off of the honeycomb with thin spacers and compensate for the added material thickness.
This was going to be my reply in the other thread. The distortions you are seeing on the backside are due to flashback, which means the power is a little too high. I generally put tape over my honeycomb to help subdue flashback, but it can be a bit messier in other ways.
You can see however, in my pieces the same heat distortion on the edges:
This could be from over powered cutting, or something else. Im waiting on my new forge to do any investigative tests, as the tube on my pre-release is in pretty poor shape
I thought the point of Proofgrade materials was not to have to mess with the settings?
Best of all, the paper has embedded codes that your Glowforge can read. This is absolutely magical. You may have heard that with lasers, you have to cut and engrave test pieces over and over again to learn the right power and settings, and you have to do it separately every time you use a new material. As you’d imagine, that’s a frustrating, slow, and expensive process. Proofgrade materials do away with all of that. Your Glowforge recognizes the material, automatically configures itself, and prints perfectly.
I hope this is just the support organization working out their growing pains. Since we explicitly don’t get support for non-proofgrade, it seems like “I bought this piece of ProofGrade and used it as intended in a factory stock machine with default settings and I got bad results” should be a cause for more detailed investigation.
Discourse does not force you to close a thread or assume the problem. The platform is completely independent from the interaction. I’d rather not speculate on what the organizational problems could be. It’s a pretty straight-forward problem with some obvious steps to reproduce/diagnose the issue. It should be pretty simple to get this issue sorted out and deliver customer satisfaction.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with the machines, I remember seeing that on the black acrylic I have cut but never noticed it on other colors or clear.
I just finished inspecting cuts in colors and clear under my jeweler’s loupe and I see the same thing on all of it. It seems less so on clear, but it is there. I think it is pronounced on black, or is more noticable.
I would expect the effect could be reduced by lower power high speed and multiple passes, but that is just speculation.
I do believe that is an inherent characteristic of cutting acrylic with heat, and will always be exhibited, just a matter of degree.
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I have no problem with your post. In this case, you are correct. A forum is not a good place to host support. It’s frustrating to have a problem and get a mixed bag of help/speculation/dismissal from other users.
My point was that the software did not cause the insufficient support.
Everyone needs to bear in mind the software is still beta.
Personally I much prefer the company made the decision to ship in that condition rather than make everyone wait longer.
How about steps to reproduce the behavior, and we can try to help?
Post your file, and which of the materials you used? from there we ought to be able to doublecheck.
That’s a very closed response. Should there not be a follow up with some recommended setting adjustments? Did they do a test and say, we can’t reproduce this problem? We’re essentially left with trial and error at this point which is specifically what PG materials are made to alleviate.
It is not, as in the first post, I show a piece I’ve cut on another machine with no issues. If you are seeing it on all GF acrylic (a wavy line) that is not normal.
I would wager you will see the effect under magnification on any acrylic cut on any laser. Perhaps even greatly diminished but still present.
If you still have any that you cut on another machine if you could examine the edge under magnification and still tell us it’s completely absent that would be helpful.
As I said it exists on every piece of acrylic I have cut across 6 months… but all of it has been on a glowforge.
I would try the lower power multiple pass method and compare results.
Select the rocket topper. Use Black medium PG acrylic. Let the machine select settings or select Medium black acrylic manually. Try it with masking on, or masking off. Print. I’ve done all of these variations with same result.
If you can not reproduce it then it is an issue with either my batch of PG materials or the machine.
materials you used? from there we ought to be able to doublecheck.