Our makeshift supports for objects otherwise too high are okay… but what would be even better is ‘add on’ purchase option. Crumb trays of varying heights.
1/2 inch,
1 inch,
1 1/2 inch.
Caveat the minimum/maximum height at purchase time and again on installation instructions in the box.
I’d easily purchase several additional crumb trays for $50-$100 each. I’d likely purchase a single additional crumb tray if I had repeating need for $200. I’d probably need to be a business rather than a hobbyist to purchase a single crumb tray for more than $250.
EDIT:
In no way am I saying you shouldn’t post your ideas, even if they are dupes. Dupes can serve to show just how much we all want something, and this is a really good idea. Let those ideas roam!
How about a tray with a honeycomb that can be moved up and down to those heights with a sort of cam system and a slider with detentes to stop at the given points? Feel free to add it to the hopper.
Moving parts are almost certain to add some inaccuracy, unfortunately. We operate at some pretty tight tolerances inside the glowforge, while it may be possible to get it as accurate as we’re used to, it would definitely not be inexpensive and would probably be prone to going out of true, requiring calibration fairly regularly. Maybe a serious machinist can add some non-speculative info here, but I think a thinner solid fixed thickness tray is probably a more likely scenario if we ever see this.
fwiw, the universal laser i have at work moves the entire bed up and down to focus. i have a little tool with a detente in it that i set on the material, then with a button move the bed up and down until the edge of the head lines up with the detente. so it’s definitely doable. but that’s the entire bed moving and the crumb tray sits on the bed.
What kind of tolerances do you get? “lines up”, as in you eyeball it? I’ll admit that focus height tolerances probably don’t need to be as tight as XY do, but still.
it has an “autofocus” feature, but it takes forever and the guy who trained us when it was installed said he never uses it. i haven’t had any focal issues that weren’t due to severe user error (i.e., i forgot to change focus height when i changed material).
honestly, it hasn’t seemed like a big deal. and that’s part of how i have a 9" Z axis range.
Yeah I am pretty loose on focal height, If i’m within about 0.05", I seem to be fine. This might be a bigger issue with engraves and line pitch, but for cuts, it seems ok… but that price stings, oof.
Granted, I’m sure you aren’t paying 30K for the fancy up and down bit, but still. it wouldn’t come cheap to engineer that properly.
How about a thin crumb tray with a set of spacer feet that fit the bottom dimples to provide different heights. The different height spacers could be made to provide accurate tray surface heights and be cheaper than a new set of whole crumb trays,.
That’s what I do with the Redsail. My little tool is set for 80-something mm so I can rest it on a flat part of the head assembly (the lens is lower - it’s a standard 50.4mm lens).
The other tool I’ve seen used is a block that’s 30ish mm tall that you stick on the material and then move the bed up until the nose cone of the head hits the block. The cone is about 20something mm so when it hits the block, the lens is placed correctly - but I don’t like the head hitting things so I use the little acrylic tool I’ve cut out and sized to rest on the head mounting plate.
hrm. now you have me thinking about making our own tool here for focus. even if it’s just because i know at some point someone is going to “misplace” that thing and we won’t have an easy backup.
Since I have the design file and I can make copies (I actually did make a couple extra) I haven’t lost it. I know if I didn’t save the design and/or have copies it’d be lost in a week
True… and I do search before I post. None of my searches popped up anything that looked relevant.
I try my best to keep my topic title clear and relevant for easy searching.
I’m late but just adding my vote to the different sized crumb trays idea.
I just bought a couple of ceramic floor tiles to fit in the bottom, but I would like something that fits more sturdily into the crumb tray’s divots (and has the ventilation that the crumb tray has).
Since I have the design file and I can make copies (I actually did make a couple extra) I haven’t lost it. I know if I didn’t save the design and/or have copies it’d be lost in a week 