Placement of Design issue

All the way to the front right of the crumb tray if you want to get max use out of it. The back is out of view of the camera and inaccessible to the laser head.

Sounds like you have an issue here. I routinely start at the top-left edge of more expensive material when I want to limit waste. Never had any issue.

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Yes. I put guides in my template as no go zones.

It’s pretty standard for an inch or so of the top and left side of standard sized 12x20 PG material to be unavailable when placed on the bed the normal way (as opposed to poking it through the front pass through slot.)

Thank you! That does make sense.

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And are those guides at 1" from the top and 1" from the left? Thank you for your help!

If your machine can utilize the far left of edge the crumb tray congratulations, that gives me hope that future software updates can enable that for everybody. The unavailability of the left edge has been confirmed by many users and support as of quite recently.

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In addition to what everyone else said, make sure your camera is zoomed out all of the way. If you’re zoomed in too tight, it will look like you are placing near the edge when you really aren’t. The zoom controls are the + and - magnifying icons at the top of the screen.

Thank you! That should be helpful.

Maybe we are talking apples and oranges. The camera can see the entire area available for cutting but can not see the entire crumb tray grilled area. If yours is different from that then the company must have changed something because all of the early production machines are like that. Even after perfect calibration.

If your machine can reach the top left and the top right then it is capable of reaching more than 20" horizontally. Not possible as far as I know.

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I put one verticle guide at .5 from the left and one vertical guide .75 from the right. The Glowforge can’t go all the way to the left, but it actually is less that 1/2 an inch. The right has more un-addressable space that is actually slightly less than .75 inches, but in this case I am good with these left and right margins as a reminder. I put a horizontal guide about 1.25 from the top as a margin. The Glowforge won’t address the bottom 1/4 of a full sheet that is down all the way to the edge of the honeycome. I always put the sheet about a 1/4 up to get max use of sheet.

Of course all these are for cuts as engraves makes the margins a moving target.

I rarely make something that big, but it is helpful when I am cutting out parts of a box so I know what will work. Often I split the job up with colors so I can do the left half of the cuts on one side of the material, having shifted the material over to the margins of the crumb tray and use hold down pins for the left side of the material. Then I shift it over the left margin of the crumb tray to get at the right side of the material. Then move the whole thing up or down if I want to get every square inch on one sheet of 12x20.

There are some diminishing returns with worry about margins and shifting things. It all depends on your design and what dimension of materials you have and how concerned you are to get every cent out of the material.

The 20 x 12 art board works very well with jigs that I have taped down. I can reopend the design after shutting down and it will be at the same spot.

This is also less important since Set Focus and lid camera calibration have allowed for so much better positioning of a design on materials.

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That was all VERY helpful! Thanks so much for taking the time for me. I can do more testing on Monday and can’t wait to see what I wind up after everyone’s help/

Correct. If I place an item at the top-left, it cuts to the extent of the cut area in the top left. The margin on the left is significantly smaller than on the right.

The person I was replying to said to not place designs there.

Hi again, I was able to cut out your guides but I could swear that you attached a photo of how they were used. Can you point me to that photo or upload it for me once again?
Thank you~

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There might be a misunderstanding here. I use the guide lines that Inkscape provides for marking the margins on my Inkscape document artboard. You get them by clicking and dragging down or over from the rulers. Double click them and you can edit the position exactly.

Oh! I see. But I also found the post where there guides and cut file were located since I asked you. Thank you for that information!

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I’m sorry you had some trouble with the alignment and placement of the materials. I see you got some wonderful advice from everyone here.

Could you let us know if you are still running into any problems with your prints?

The entire concept is just very confusing. I guess I’ll figure it out at some point. Thank you and Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! If you still run into trouble, please let us know. You can start a new thread, or email us at support@glowforge.com and we’ll be happy to help.