Okay Im new to this

New Glowforger here. On my first test cut the glow forge wouldn’t cut completely through. it was on .25 inch material and cut most oil the way but not completely through. do I need to show the thickness as slightly thicker than .25? On another note I placed the material and overplayed the design on the material. When we hit print it moved the the cut so it was just outside. the edge of the material.

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Please only open one post. You should be looking at your other topic for assistance.

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@bravehaven did you use proofgrade materials?

My understanding is the autofocus that happens before printing will adjust the preview based on the determined distance of material automatically. If your design is super close to the edge, it may need to be readjusted after focusing

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Since Made on Glowforge is for showing off items you have made on Glowforge, I’m going to move this topic.

Also, are you using a thick proofgrade material? If not, what material were you using? If the material is flat, you should just use autofocus, as it is pretty good at reading the material height. Next, what settings are you using? I prefer using default settings for proofgrade materials as a starting place for materials. However, if you search the forums, there is so much information on settings that have been tested by other users.

Look at the material you are using. Is it the cheap 1/4-inch wood from Home Depot? Lumber from big box stores in that thickness especially are filled with glue and fillers that make it impossible to cut through.

I shine a bright light on my boards and you can tell from doing that which spots the laser is not going to go through. Also make sure your fans and lenses are clean (not sure if I spelled that correctly)- if the machine is brand new, this probaby isn’t an issue, but as your fans get dirtier, the smoke doesn’t clear out the way it should and can interfere with the laser.

I use set focus before every print, because if you don’t, then when your camera focuses after you hit print, you’ll find that your design isn’t where you want it to be. I don’t really understand what you mean by overplayed the design, but I hope this helps.

I’m trying to find a post by @evansd2 made with a lot of info in the form of questions and answers, but I’m in the middle of cooking and can’t find it. Okay, found it:

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Thank you

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"do I need to show the thickness as slightly thicker than .25? " The thickness of your material is irrelevant on ‘if’ it cuts through. You need to adjust the cutting power of the GF for this. If it’s not cutting through you would need to either slow down the cut or increase the power. I remember when i first started asking something very similar thinking if i put in a thicker number it would cause it to cut deeper based on that.

As others have said, if you are not using proofgrade material, it could be glue spots, etc. That being said, i use a lot of non proofgrade material and don’t have much problems so you aren’t limited to only proofgrade.

And the opposite is true. This is a technique called defocusing and can be useful for a variety of purposes. If you defocus above the material (put in a thicker value for the material in the focal setting) the beam focuses above the material and is spreading out when it hits the surface. For Scores you can get wider scoring lines that may eliminate the need to engrave something to get the thicker lines you might want. It’s also handy to get rid of some of the lines you find inside engraves in acrylic.

If you tell the machine the material is thinner than it is by putting a smaller value in the focal distance setting, the beam will be focused inside the material. I do that with thicker materials as it can help when trying to cut 1/4" or greater materials like Baltic Birch. But the kerf will be wider at the surface than you may expect which may impact any joinery you’re planning. Just need to account for it.

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