I have a question and I didn’t know what section to ask it in. After much pondering and not having a good answer, I figure I would ask it here. Why wouldn’t GF attach a ruler engraved in the 4 plastic sides of the tray? I have taped a paper ruler to the Left and right sides and the bottom of the tray. Aligning was a little tedious but it is better than nothing. I have printed out some of the ruler options but non the less. Does it make sense to anyone else to have it on the tray on all 4 sides?
If you want to open a support ticket, then this is the section to post in. If you just want to ask the community without getting Support involved, then you can post over in Everything Else.
I think it’s probably because of the optical alignment. Every machine’s ruler would be a little bit different, and also the tray can shift around a little bit (unless you use @timjedwards’ “boots” file – Give that wiggly GF tray the boot!).
There have been some ruler designs posted in the free files area in the past that you can make and attach to your tray. (I’ll let you do the searching for those, though!)
I understand that everyones 0,0 would be different, but I would learn what my real 0,0 is. I feel it would still be better than nothing. But I also understand, people feel to free to complain about everything. I am not complaining, I was just curious. Maybe it would also be hard for them to get the square markings on opposite sides.
You can just cut out the “maximum” cut area from a sheet of proofgrade, then engrave/score markings to make your own ruler that fits perfectly in the bed.
That’s what I used until the camera calibration process was released.
It’s more than just learning where 0,0 is. Since the tray can be moved within its notches, left, right, up or down, then your 0,0 point could be wrong. There’s also the variations of levelness in people’s machines. GF couldn’t just stamp rulers on every tray and expect the thousands of customers to have similar alignment, let alone learn what their accuracy is.
Another problem I see with it is, the wide angle camera they use to take the picture of the bed, wouldn’t necessarily take a flat picture that lines up with the ruler in the UI and the tray. Some people have great calibration, where when they “set focus”, the machine’s image doesn’t change very much, but at the furthest edges, for most people, it does change. Easier to have people come up with their own solutions, of which there have been a few in the past, than try to have it be uniform and it be another sore point.
I made my own veneer crumbtray rulers from nearly day one. Depending on what you’re using the machine for, they are incredibly useful. I used them all the time.
If the camera calibration doesn’t work for you and you wanted to attach rulers, Tim came up with these gadgets that will help center the tray for better accuracy.
You can also buy adhesive-backed ruler tape. It’s commonly used in woodworking.
It’s also that you’d need to relearn, or at least verify, your 0,0 point every time you remove your crumb tray (either for larger items, or to clean it). But it indeed could be helpful to many–but in the meantime until GF offers that, we each figure out what works best for our processes!
