We have been making Tileys (we call them this since we make ‘Bencheys’ (tiny ships) out of each of our printing filaments our 3D printer). The design is based on jtbarrett’s tiles (link at the bottom) updated slightly for Glowforge’s new print options. We wanted demos of each material with their proofgrade settings for comparison. Unfortunately several of the proofgrade settings for some materials are not consistent as you can see. Close up photos will be in the comments as I can only post one photo at a time. Please help us Glowforge!
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Hey Glowforge, I’m checking in since I haven’t heard anything. I’m having issues with the proofgrade settings on proofgrade material, as you can see above there are a number of consistency issues from burning being too light to 3D engraving cutting all the way through. Can you assist on how we make adjustments for these? Is there any information I can give you to help you hone in the settings for us? Is this an issue with just my machine? Please help.
Thought I’d responded to this, but i must have gotten distracted before hitting send…
Did you try them on another spot in the wood? I don’t know if it’s what is causing this or not, but the variations in natural materials might account for what you are seeing there in a couple of places. Either a knot or a dense spot in the hardwood itself.
They are rarely uniform in texture and composition. Sometimes it’s just the luck of the draw.
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I am terribly sorry for the delayed reply to your message. There are a variety of issues that may have caused what you’re seeing. Would you do the following to help us learn more?
- To cut or engrave successfully, there are three important things to check. First, your material must lie flat. This requires a clean, properly installed crumb tray and flat materials. Second, there must be no obstructions, dirt, or damage preventing the laser light from reaching your material. Third, your design must be set up properly - for example, with lines that are fully on the material and that are set to cut.
a) Please thoroughly inspect your unit and design according to the suggestions in our troubleshooter. I’m particularly interested in what you see when you look at the lens and mirrors, and in ensuring that the crumb tray is flat.
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Inspect your materials. If you set the Tileys down on the lid of your Glowforge, do they lie completely flat?
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Please try another print. We included an extra piece of Proofgrade Draftboard with your materials shipment for troubleshooting. Please print the Gift of Good Measure on Proofgrade Draftboard and let us know the result. If it doesn’t print well, please let us know the date and time of your print and send photos of the front and back of the print.
Thank you!
Jules, thanks for the feedback. I realized that the photos above don’t show very well the spots where it cut through the wood. I’m including new photos. The fact that on some of the woods one proofgrade setting is too light and one proofgrade setting cuts all the way through seems less likely to be caused by a knot or dense grain. Also it is the HD engrave, Photo Engrave or score that turn out too light and only the 3D engrave that cuts too far. However we are doing a recut on the basswood. We are following Rita’s instructions and adding a the Basswood cut on at the end since our previous draft board cut had no issues.
Rita, Happy to try whatever you like.
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We are pretty certain everything was lying flat, we checked things a couple times. That said we have done the full cleaning you requested. The lens and mirrors looked clean. There may have been a small amount of something on the head window. We cleaned all to be sure. The tray was flat in the dimples. We have not had issues with everything we cut or engrave, only with certain proofgrade settings and their matching Proofgrade materials.
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I inspected all of our proofgrade Tileys on top of the Glowforge. The walnut one has the tiniest bit of a bow but the rest are very flat.
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We printed a Tiley on Draftboard previously, though it wasn’t shown above. All of those settings came out perfectly. We have now reprinted a Draftboard Tiley as you requested and it is also perfect, the differences are minute. Picture shown. We are now reprinting the Basswood Tiley as that was the one with the most issues, I will post that shortly.
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Rita,
I am making several replies to upload several photos to show you the results of our second Proofgrade Basswood Tiley. This was printed 1/27/18 and finished at about 9:30pm. We did this burn directly after having finished the burn on the Proofgrade Draftboard as you requested. You can see that it is still too light in the HD engrave and Photo Engrave settings, the UnScore is also uneven, the 3D Engrave still burned through, though not as badly as the first time. Also, we noticed that the HD gradient goes from light to dark and back to light again when it should be darkest. This happened on the first Tiley but was not as pronounced as this one. Let us know what you think? Thanks.
This photo is a side by side of the original Proofgrade Basswood Tiley burned on 1/17/18 (left) and the one burned today 1/27/18 (right).
This is the Proofgrade Basswood Tiley burned today flipped over so you can better see where the engraving cut all the way through.
I was wrong about the 3D engrave not being cut through as badly on the second Tiley as the first. In this photo is does look like more wood survived, but it turns out that is just because the first Tiley had been handled more and now the hole in the 3D gradient is exactly the same on both Tileys.
Thanks so much for the photos. I’ll keep digging and update the thread when I have more information.
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Thanks for your patience. I just want to let you know I’m still looking into this!
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Thanks for your patience. Unfortunately, we found your unit has a problem we can’t solve remotely. I suggest a warranty replacement and will be in touch via email to sort out the details.
I’m so sorry for the bad news.