Hi, I’m new to using my Glowforge Aura. I was working on some keychains for volunteers at my organization. I started by printing just one and it came out fine. I then copied the text and printed another 3 at the same time and those also came out fine. I wanted to print another 4 (after the changes with the new preview function was release) and this time, the text is not lining up correctly.
I selected the Thick Maple Plywood material. I lined all of the text up with the keychains. After I hit print, the alignment shift. I cancelled print, realigned and hit print again. All looked to be aligned correctly this time. When I printed, the text on the bottom and top keychains were misaligned (top was too high and bottom was too low) but the middle one was for the most part aligned correctly.
The only thing I think could have changed was the new release of the preview function.
Can anyone explain why these would not be aligned correctly, especially when I’ve don’t this with multiple keychains once before? It seems counterintuitive to have to print one at a time.
I’ve looked at some of the topics and they seem similar but slightly different.
PS, I recently cleaned the rails with alcohol wipes.
1st question would be, when you say “recently cleaned” do you mean between each of those cuts? Based on our experience here, that should be your go-to. Every time you open the lid, run a wipe over the rails.
2nd would be that the camera is a fisheye lens (no where near as much as the one on the CO2 lasers, but still!) That would explain the drift you’re seeing. So for doing anything repeatable I’d throw in a piece of cardboard and pin it to your bed. Cut out holes that fit your keychains, then line up your words to the cut holes in the GFUI, ignore how it looks against the material, and hit go. If you don’t move the material or bump the head or anything, it will cut in exactly the same place. It’s a rudimentary jig and they save you so much frustration!
The preview function has nothing to do with alignment. Your best bet for items such as these is to create a jig, but you should also be using the set focus tool prior to placing your design.
What is called Calibration on the bigger machines is called Printer-head-setup for the Aura. Using that and the Set Focus command before placement should solve those issues
