Was trying to position some cut elements around in the Glowforge UI and noticed that the gray “no cut” zone was changing size when I rotated a part?
In the two attached images you can clearly see the right hand keep out zone doubles in size when I rotate the part 180 deg without making any other changes. This seems like just a UI glitch but it makes it difficult to fully utilize the material.
See that little number 2 that you have on the part? I’ll bet that’s engraved right?
The only time the gray zones change is when a part that contains engraving gets too close to the sides - the gray zones are a buffer that allows the head to slow down at the sides during high speed engraves.
Shift the engraving out of the gray zone and you should be good to go.
The gray zones are larger for engraving than for cutting – in other words, you can get closer to the edge with cuts than with engraves. In the top photo, you have a tiny engraved spot at the far right, so the gray zone shows you engrave limits. When you flip the engrave to the other end, all that’s close to the edge is cuts, so it shows you the cut limits, with are farther out.
I hope that makes some sort of sense. It seemed to, as I typed it!
BTW, if you change the “2” to a score instead of an engrave you won’t see the no-go zone change because a score is the same as a cut in terms of head movement. No extra room for acceleration/deceleration is needed for scores than is needed for cuts.
So you can often squeeze in extra width when you might be constrained if you can score things like letters/numbers instead of engrave them. (& it’s likely faster too)
Thanks for the help, @jules, @geek2nurse, and @jamesdhatch - that’s exactly right.
I’m going to close this thread - if you run into any other trouble, go ahead and post a new topic or email us at support@glowforge.com. Happy printing!
