I have my glowforge plus since 2021. I have used it many times. As you can see in the pictures, the camera showed everything was aligned, but when it finished, the whole project was off and misaligned. Is there something I missed? I have never had this happen before.
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The autofocus step is key here.
The plus shoots a red laser, it hits your material, a camera notes its position and calculates your material thickness. Then the preview image adjusts accordingly, with the best alignment right where the measurement was taken.
Your alignment is tricky for two main reasons — because your items are scattered around with gaps between:
- the Glowforge (or you, if you used set focus) picked a spot in the middle to focus on. It’s possible that the red dot missed your material, causing an incorrect material height reading and therefore an inaccurate preview image.
- because the measurement is centered around one point the preview alignment tends to get poorer the further from that point you go.
Generally speaking the solution to projects with complex alignment requirements is a jig. For more detail about camera alignment and a guide to using jigs you’ll want to check out two items on my FAQ, #15 and #23.
Let us know how it all turns out!
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Everything that @evansd2 wrote, but also, how thick is your material (it looks weirdly tall in the UI photo)? It is taller than half an inch? If it’s too tall, that’ll throw things off too. You’ve had it since 2021, so you probably know this already.
I always make a cardboard jig when i need perfect alignment, but I also try to place all my objects as close to the center under the camera as possible so that it’s most accurate. It tends to get distorted near the edges, like a fisheye view. There is a thread on this forum where a user shared a how to on using a grid she made for perfect alignment without using the camera, you might want to use that if the objects needs to be apart like that.
If it’s really off after you use set focus (I’d probably test with a light, quick score on cardboard first), then you might need to do a camera calibration, but usually that only needs to be done after you move the machine.
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What they said…any chance the head could have hit something?
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If it were and you autofocused on it, I think the Glowforge would have thrown an error and canceled the job. It still indicates a focus issue, but with a different possible cause. Good catch!
I also wondered that a bit but I thought maybe the pieces were light enough that the air assist could have jostled them.
Seemed less likely so I didn’t go into it, but you were probably right to suggest it.
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The material is selenite. It is 3/8”.
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Although the material is 3/8”, it appears to be masked and in some cases the masking is folded underneath. This changes the height of the individual items and can affect the focus. If you focus on each individual item before placing your design on that item you will have better luck. However, you will not get precise alignment as the lid camera is not a precise tool. It is most accurate in the center of the bed.
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Exactly. Jigs are the move here.
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Thank you, that was the problem. I grouped them together and it worked. The alignment was right and had no problem.
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Which thing in particular was the issue? There were a few suggestions.
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