So it seems recently that my GlowForge has gotten worse on the “put the design exactly where I put it”.
What’s the current best practices for adjusting for this?
Pictures attached
If alignment is critical, use a jig. There’s no more sure way to do it.
Camera can be great, but if you’re off the focal height for any reason, your whole operation is blown. Jigs have no such problem.
That slight variance is caused by the fisheye effect of the lid camera, and you need to be using Set Focus on each token in order to get multiples aligned correctly.
It works like this…where you click with the Set Focus tool, it takes a measurement at that spot and the view temporarily becomes as if that spot was right under the lid camera. So you would align the design for that token. But then you have to click the Set Focus tool on the next token to align that one. And so on. When you get them all aligned, then you run the job. But each time you click Set Focus somewhere else, the earlier views of the designs that you already aligned are going to change a little. Do not change them again, they are actually placed where they need to be.
To get accurate “physical” results, which is what ultimately counts, you have to be willing to accept that what you see on the screen is going to appear to be slightly off.
It looks like you cut those out though, and if you do that, there is a much easier way to do reverse side engraving that is 100% accurate every time…you just leave them in the backing material and flip them over. Tutorial for that below:
Have you run the camera calibration routine?
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How often do you reboot the entire machine? It can start to get off if you leave it on for extended periods (weeks, not hours)
Evan, thanks for the advice. I’m curious how a jig would help me. I still have to put the image in, right, and it would still be misaligned, right?
A bit confused…
So Assuming the problem is something like “ok I need to engrave pre-cut circles.”
You’d make artwork that sets up your engraves inside circles of the correct size.
Send the job to the glowforge. Cinch your jig material (cardboard? scrap of some sort) nice and tight to the crumb tray.
Cut the circles.
Open the glowforge, remove the waste circles from the jig. Don’t move the jig material or the art in the GF UI.
Insert your precut wooden circles. Run the engrave, turn off the cuts.
Now you should have engraved wooden circles, with a high degree of accuracy.
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