Snapmark jig, different height than material to be engraved?

[aparadise]

Hi all,

I ordered some PG Medium thickness draft board to create a jig in order to do a set of aluminum cards. One thing I’m getting stuck on is how to ensure Snapmark alignment stays true with these different thicknesses.

Aluminum Cards: .8mm thick, 86x54mm
Draft board: 1/8th inch thick, 12x20"

My SVG was built in Illustrator, and it contains:
Snapmarks (they’re being picked up by the machine)
Jig rectangles at 86.1x54.1mm
Grid of 86x54mm designs for the cards. (So I can engrave 20 at a time)

My jig cuts to size matching Illustrator mm’s perfectly (86mmx54mm), the cards snap into the jig perfectly. However, when I went to do the run to engrave them, the alignment was off by about half an inch.

I believe this is because the aluminum cards are a different height than the jig. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Should I have my material thickness still set to 1/8th inch, but my focal point for my artwork set to .8mm? Is there some other set of settings I should be using for that?

Thank you!

[Jules]

Yes, you’re on the right track… discussed in detail here:

Notes on Working with Snapmarks™

Introduction to Snapmarks :arrow_upper_right:This is the first thing to read through. (Obviously.) 1. If you have any problems… First report it to @bonny on the Introducing Snapmark thread to help the team develop a workaround. Tell them the dimensions of the snapmarks in your design program, the name of the design program, the version number and the operating system. 2. Make sure you do not accidentally reshape or rotate the Snapmarks…they will not work. 3. Other rules to follow …

[aparadise]

@aparadise

he aluminum cards are a different height than the jig. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Should I have my material thickness still set to 1/8th inch, but my focal point for my artwork set to .8mm? Is there some other set of settings I should be using for that?

Thank you!

I took a look through there and couldn’t find the exact answer I was looking for, other than he mentions to just re-use the cutouts, with the cards attached to them, maybe that’s a good idea. If I can’t get that to work, is this the correct process?

1. Cut snapmarks/jigs, remove cutouts. (at 1/8th inch material thickness)
2. Leave material thickness, ignore snapmarks/jigs, enable engrave step.
3. Set engrave step focus point to .8mm, leaving material at 1/8th inch thickness.
4. Start snapmark finding process
5. Print once found?

[Jules]

It’s in there. When you snap, you use the material height for the jig. When you engrave, you over-ride the height manually to set the engraving focal point depth.

[aparadise]

I think I’m good. I’m not sure what caused the mis-alignment the first time, but I re-did them and it’s find now.

[Jules]

Great!

[takitus]

I’ve never had to enter height/thickness in material settings for snapmarks to work for me. I usually run the snapmarks alignment before entering material height. Sometimes I never even enter material height.

I do like to keep my snapmarks as close to surface level as possible, but generally this is because I like my jigs to be the same thickness as the item.

The only time I’ve had issues when height comes in to play is snapmarks below bed level. I haven’t gotten those to work, but understandably so, as the head cam is too far away to read them clearly.