Odd alignment issue on my Pro

The Glowforge prints fine, however the print is slightly off compared to where the image says it will print (a couple of mm).

I’m using proof grade material and I regularly cleans the lenses etc.

Something odd is going on

As can be seen in the image, the red rings are where it should have printed and the black circles are where the laser actually cut

Have you already run the Camera Recalibration program located here?:

If not, give it a try.

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Did the camera alignment thing and now much more accurate placement, thanks!!!

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Hmm spoke too soon, did a second print on same piece of ply and it was off by about 2 inches as per photo - is some form of re-alignment required between prints?

2 inches is not remotely acceptable, and no, re-alignment is not required between prints. Once the camera calibration is successfully completed, it shouldn’t have to be done again. Did you use the set focus tool and get this misalignment? That would really be a problem.

Okay, yeah something is out of whack. It should look like the first one not be off by that far. Did the head hit anything? No debris on the tracks? Didn’t move it by hand while the machine was on or bump it?

Try turning off the machine then turning it back on and see if it still does it.

Nope, just cleaned the lens with Zeiss wipes, closed lid moved the image and hit print

Try turning off the machine for a minute to let it reset. I seem to recall that sometimes immediately after the calibration other people experienced that. (Of course I might just need a nap.) :smile:

Wow… my alignment is off way more than your original pic, but at least it’s consistent.

I’m unable to use the calibration tool but I have been working around it since day one, so I just live with it.

Just double checking - you used the Set Focus or input a material depth between closing the lid and moving the image, correct? Cuz if not that’s definitely your issue!

Does that mean you cleaned it with the machine on? If the head is moved at all (without a motion plan), it will not know where the head is at. So if you slid the head over a bit to be able to access the lens or whatever, it will effectively have lost it’s known position.

To correct this, the system needs to be rebooted.

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Nope, opened the cover and just cleaned the lens on the lid

Ahh ok. The lid camera lens.

When you say two inches, was that from the overlay to where it actually printed? There had been confusion lately (and always) about how the bed image is cropped; that the left side and top side are cropped, so you can’t see the full sheet of material.

yup the image printed about 2 inches to the right of where it should have. Went through the cold start procedure and next print was perfect, image aligned with final print within millimetres

So are you saying things are now ok?

I’m sorry you ran into trouble with your print alignment. I’m glad to hear that your most recent prints have turned out as expected. That’s great! Would you please let me know if you’re still having trouble the next time you try a print?

As I said resetting (ie turning off the GF and moving arm/head to middle0 and then printing works fine, no idea why when opening lid and cleaning lens on lid then printed skew?

If you adjust your view based on the camera after opening the lid and without doing a new set focus it will skew because the camera has been moved.
If you just hit print it should be in the same place on your board. If it’s not, then you’re managing to bump the laser head/arm while opening cleaning

I extracted the logs to investigate the problem you reported, and it looks like the print head had been moved a couple inches to the right of it’s home position.

  • This explains the unexpected result you saw

  • This also confirms that restarting your Glowforge (and the re-centering on startup) resolved the problem

I’m going to close this thread - if the problem reoccurs, go ahead and post a new topic. Thanks for letting us know about this!