Passthrough mode frustration

I have a design that needs a very slightly larger cut area than a single session can support. Just 11" high (don’t get me started on the available cut size vs proof grade sheet size…) Fine, I’ll use the fancy passthrough thing I paid for!

First pass works great. Sometimes I can move the material down for the second pass and it lines up perfectly, but so far trying to get the very top fails to auto-align every time. Even though there is a gigantic QR code on the material it could use to register with the image alignment.

I’ve tried a couple times drawing lines on the peel-off paper to make something easier to recognize when it’s taking pictures and then aligning later, but to no avail.

Having searched these forums for hints, I’m not seeing a lot, but maybe I’m using the wrong search terms. Does passthrough actually work? Any hints on making the material more recognizable to the (apparently) poor camera recognition?

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Recognizing the material isn’t really an issue, the problem is lining up the artwork. Can you share a screenshot of the file you are trying to cut?

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In this case I’m trying to make a simple flat glue-up rectangular box to store some soccer scarves. So the file is possibly the very first thing anyone involved should have tested, a plain rectangle, as included here.
Long

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The camera needs points of reference. A file like this with only one vector, is not enough. If all you want to do is cut a rectangle, there is probably an easier way to do it than the passthrough. If you want to use the pass through, however, you will need to add some additional visual clues - even if you have no intention of cutting or engraving additional items.

If you want an 11" board, why not just cut a single line 11" from the top of your board after you have cut the sides?

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Hence my drawing some marks on the tear off paper to ostensibly help the camera recognition. If you have an easier way or something that works in another way, I’d of course love to hear it! But so far passthrough isn’t working for me and wish it worked as advertised.

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How wide do you need the rectangle? I suggest you just cut a single line 11" from the top of your board.The interface can cut a piece that is 10.9" x 19.5". What are the dimensions of your rectangle?

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18" x 11", so cutting a single line won’t make the correct size.

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Turn your board and make one cut so that you have a 12 x 18 board. Then turn that board and make a single cut of 1 inch off the end.

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I don’t use it much anymore myself. It can be extremely fiddly to get it to work and it seems to fail more than it works. There’s also a known problem with engraves where the first line in the new “slice” of the project won’t engrave. The head moves along the path but doesn’t fire the laser leaving a ridge of unburned material along the width of your material. GF has known about it for years but has declined to fix it.

Others may have better results due to different machine camera capabilities but the lack of posts may simply be that folks found it less useful than expected and gave up using it. Perhaps someone it works for will pipe up to help but you’ve already done the thing GF recommends by adding your own registration marks but you’ll need to do those in your design. Add a more complicated engrave that goes over the area where you’re going to split your passes but make it a very low power engrave so it marks the masking but doesn’t cut through. Something like a couple of the GF logos would work.

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Thanks! Both for the validation, and for the suggestion for an idea that sounds like it has a chance of working!

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Adding the reference points has worked for me. But in this case I would use the passthrough slot and not the software. Cut the 12 x 20 board down to 12 x 18 using the slot. Then cut off one inch across the board resulting in 11 x 18.

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I have no idea how you’d cut something to exactly a given dimension w/o the software making all the cuts. The camera system is awful. Interested to hear ideas on techniques I haven’t seen before, though.

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This seems to be working? Made a library of wingding/math symbol markers and scattered them over my design, set to engrave at 5% power. Worked fine when running a previously ruined sheet through as a test, and so far all good on two new test sheets. There is a little bump on spots where the cuts join, but can deal with that. Thanks again!

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