or, i guess you could make some registration marks, and have the remaining circle bit as a separate file, and optically line them up, so it would be visually pretty darn close.
With the 2" Depth of the Glowforge, adding a platform and then securing down the workpiece could work. The rotating platform doesnāt even need to be an exact circle. Could you could even engrave precision dividing marks along your jig to fully engrave the surface of your circle as well?
I think that the axle of a rotating jig would have to be exactly aligned with the artwork, otherwise when you rotate it, it may be offset.
Also, I think that if you rotated the piece, and engraved the rest, you may have angled engrave lines on that part, as the gantry goes side to side.
Thanks to all, it does have a hole in the middle, so a variety of the suggested fixes will work. The specs page does say cutting area 11.5. Was that in from the beginning ? My 12 in may have been jumping to conclusions, since that is what the Epilog and Full Spectrum lasers that I have used will do.
If it will do 11.5 in that is what I will settle for. The 2 file solution appeals to me.
Something to think aboutā¦create a removable glass (or whatever- non-laserable) rotating table, tape the material down, and you donāt even have to have a center hole drilled. The laser will cut right through the tape, and the material isnāt going to move.
Itās not like a digital cutter where the blade has to pierce the material and the paper generates resistance.
Donāt stop us nowā¦weāre on a rollā¦ROFL!
Just kiddingā¦glad that will work.
Also, donāt forget about the trace function. Use a compass to draw your circle, cut on your line, rotate it on the bed and cut the last bit. No alignment or center hole necessary!
Hadnāt thought of that. Use camera magic!
@cassonh, it was specified as 12" x 20" earlierā¦that why it was ābad newsā to some as the 12" got shrunk down to 11.5"ā¦but the pre-release models will have a smaller print area of 10" x 18.5":
However:
Good call; however, in this situation, the 300mm circle goes outside the printing area.
Yeah, great point here! For this particular case we donāt know exactly what @cassonh has in mind but you raise a great point, and possible design āfeatureā if one so desires
Slightly bothered by the change. Itās sort of deja vuey. I backed the Robox 3 d printerwhich had an 8 inch y extent, and then backed out when it turned out that this did not apply to the lowest layers, because the nozzle hit the edge. I paid more for an ultimaker and I am really happy about it. I can shrink my design, and I have just realized that I do not have to shrink all the many (many) dependent wheels and interociters and such like , just one or two. So I will stay the course, but not take up a pre- release offer. ( which has not shown up anyway.)
ā¦and that gantry holds the tube!!!
Weāve thought about it, but havenāt investigated it in detail. Weāve even noodled about engraving on spirals to make records. Although the laser arm has a lot more mass than the laser head, it also has two steppers driving it so itās capable of similar motion.
In the hopper!
I wish I could tell you that for sure, but it will take some nontrivial amount of fussing and experimentation to make that happen. Not impossible, but not simple until we build some advanced alignment features that are in the hopper.
Iām very sorry.
Iāve updated the spec page, but it did originally say 12" so you were not mistaken.
Any idea yet how accurate the alignment will be? For example when cutting acrylic in pass through mode, or double thickness from each side, how clean will the edges be at the join? How true will a long straight edge be when made from several cut and shift operations?
These things are critical to the usefulness of the machine but it looks like you havenāt even tried them yet. If pass through for the pro is anything like workable then a simple flip to use the extra inch should be trivial.
Once I get my Glowforge in front of me my first task will be to design and machine a proper indexing table that can be secured to the unit directly. A precision tool should have precision placement and measurement.
I foresee a need for shims or some other mechanism to elevate materials to fall within the .5" focal range of the lens, particularly thicker material used with the tray removed.
Perhaps a standard size item like washers that could be stackedā¦
hense the rotation of the piece and complete the cut
These things are critical to the usefulness of the machine but it looks like you havenāt even tried them yet. If pass through for the pro is anything like workable then a simple flip to use the extra inch should be trivial.
I got the pro because of the promise of pass-through, which is all about automagical cut alignment. If that feature stays āin the hopperā for a year, or forever, I would be pretty unhappy.
umā¦ yes please! And with that, add .wav to the accepted file list, for drag-and drop recordsā¦
Shoot, I would purchase that as an add-on.
Eh it doesnāt work that well; you can listen to samples online. Itās definitely a neat trick, though.