So what thickness/height measurement is being used where?

[jamesdhatch]

@johnbrooker

I still don’t see any difference.

Look at the base of the tree stand in both pictures. It’s shifted slightly to the right in the bottom pic.

[jbmanning5]

Here you go:

[johnbrooker]

Ok, I get it now. There is a movement of about 1/32 - 1/16". Is that the problem ?
After my experience with the first Glowfinger, the second one is a precision machine, so the change in the alignment between the two pics in small beer to me.
Perhaps I just don’t need that sort of precision, so the movement in the placement caused by incorrect thickness data seems to be insignificant to me.
My UK 2d worth !

Thanks, JB.

[jamesdhatch]

@johnbrooker

the change in the alignment between the two pics in small beer to me.

Pretty much the same for me. It means more for really tight tolerance designs being dropped onto a pre-existing object/shape. But there are also folks here where 0.01" is a lot and causes them serious angst even if all they’re doing is getting it 1/64" closer to the edge of a brand new sheet of material. It’s all dependent on use cases.

[Jules]

Sweet animation!

[Scott.Burns]

@Jules

The thickness of the material information is entered into the Unknown Materials slot, and then that value is used to adjust the focus of the lid camera

Hey @Jules, you’ve made this claim several times in the past (try searching “focus the lid camera”). It does not.

@dan

Note that we don’t focus the lid camera differently with the thickness number: we use the height to dewarp the image so that the preview is correctly aligned with the cutlines.

[Jules]

True. Technically it’s not the physical camera itself that is adjusted, it is the preview that we see during the placement. It’s not actually spinning the camera dial.

I left out the word “output”. (I’ll go fix that so that no one is confused by my error.)

[tennessee_reid]

Once again Jules for the WIN.

[jbmanning5]

I can say this much: if your material or design is placed to where the red dot doesn’t hit the material (and goes into the crumbtray), it will throw a material height error.

[leahgee2]

@jbmanning5

I can say this much: if your material or design is placed to where the red dot doesn’t hit the material (and goes into the crumbtray), it will throw a material height error.

is that the case even if you specified your own material thickness or focus height?

[jbmanning5]

Would appear so. I was using non-PG with a height specified. I haven’t tested it (better things to do with my time) but the red dot uses an area within the design. So I’m fine that it threw an error because I wouldn’t have hit my material.

[leahgee2]

well, that’s different than what previous owners have found:

@palmercr

When you enter a focus height it gets used and the red dot value is ignored. If you do this for all operations it still scans the material. This is what causes confusion that it might be offsetting

It isn’t. It is a completely redundant operation.

@scott.wiederhold

I have verified by experiment (adjusting settings, and examining the resulting PULS file that is sent to the device) that this is correct.

If the thickness of the material (what is set by the material you choose, or automatically for Proofgrade) is the same as the focus for the operation, the device will use whatever reading it gets when it goes through the “Scanning” operation.

If you change it to something different in the operation, it will use that value instead.

@Jules

My experience has been that you can tell it where to focus by going to the Manual settings and setting a Focal Point for that operation. It overrides the auto-focus.

but then again, it’s possible that GF has pushed an update between the posts and we didn’t know about it

[scott.wiederhold]

@leahgee2

well, that’s different than what previous owners have found:

I actually haven’t done any controlled tests where the material measurement is out of range, or when material isn’t present.

I can, and shall.

[markwal]

I think all of the quotes you mention, there was material in the spot checked by the red dot within the 0-0.5" range. The error message is when the red dot camera doesn’t see a red dot.

[jbmanning5]

Precisely. Basically a “null” value.

[paulw]

@jbmanning5

Would appear so. I was using non-PG with a height specified. I haven’t tested it (better things to do with my time) but the red dot uses an area within the design. So I’m fine that it threw an error because I wouldn’t have hit my material.

I’m not as fine with that. It’s not a big deal, but I would love an override button that said “just go with teh $#%#% height I told you!”

My case was engraving a bunch of dice in a jig. The red dot kept landing just off the edge of a die and giving me an error unless I aligned the jig just so (and a bit off from where I wanted it)

[jbmanning5]

How tall were your dice?

[jamesdhatch]

@palmercr

We have no idea how accurate the red dot is because we can’t trust any of the specs.

Huh. I would have thought you guys had measured that when you were doing all the measurements around the head/lens focusing movements and range.

It would be a useful thing to know. I know the red dot laser used for positioning on the Redsail isn’t very precise so I wasn’t expecting much from it. I figured it was still in process. Didn’t realize it was doing any meaningful measurements.

[leahgee2]

well it’s supposed to eventually take care of the continuous focus, so it better be meaningful!

[kennethclapp]

@Jules

The red dot laser might just be correcting the warp for placement of interrelated parts of the designs, it’s not calculating the actual height of the material or inputting it into the slots for Focal Point. For all the machine knows, we might want to cut the thing out with the Focal Point on the bottom of the material instead of the top. (Don’t recommend it, it really makes a mess with charring, but I have tested it.)

But the problem is that it is calculating material height. Let it measure in a hole in the material, or accidentally bounce off a magnet instead of the surface and you will see a definitive change in cut and engrave quality regardless of what you set material thickness to, unless you also set an offset on the step itself.

I understand that we put in a material thickness to let the machine dewarp the image and allow for more accurate placement. I’m just saying IF the red dot is actually taking a percise measurement of where the top of the material is, it would be nice if it would turn around and use that measurement to better refine the dewarping of the bed image, or better yet, When a new clean sheet of material is put in, just automate that whole initial process and let us start fiddling from there. I use offsets all the time, especially with engraves. I don’t want it to take away my ability to set things manually when I want, it just seems they have all or most of the pieces in place to simplify the initial startup and remove at least some user error (oops! Forgot to zero out my calipers!)