And of course, it happened with a beautiful large piece of cherry.
The test run of one medallion worked great. (top left corner)
When I ganged up the whole set, it printed as much as you see in the first photo, and then the laser stopped lasering, while everything else continued to make noise (no movement). The power button did not change color. I got no warnings. Would like to open a ticket so you can check my log (2 pm EST on May 25).
To save the wood, I think restarted the GF, removed the images from the right side and reran the job just with the left side images (second picture). As you can see, it also failed, this time sooner in the process.
I have read here that some people are blaming magnets, which I hadn’t heard before. Is that just a hunch or has someone demonstrated that they make a difference? Because they are certainly the best way to avoid large sheets bowing.
I wish there were better user diagnostics. I think if a job fails, it ought to tell us why.
I’ve yet to have any PG material bow. But when I use non-PG, I usually go for the hold-down pins. Just little T’s that hold the wood down. That way I don’t have to worry about magnets and metal and fans.
I’ve never used magnets; I know a large amount of people do. Maybe someone more helpful than me will come through.
If these are magnets
then yes that is why it failed. magnets under the head is not the problem. it is when the head is cutting and there is a magnet under the air assist fan that you get the errors normally.
it could also be a signal that you need to clean your air assist fan? maybe the magnets would not normally be an issue but a combination of the two might be causing the problem.
Doesn’t the “magnet issue” trigger a very specific error message about the air assist fan which gets displayed in the GFUI?
Magnets can work for material hold down. A lot of people use them regularly without incident. I would avoid placing them in the upper left corner. You can also use or make shielded magnets, like those pulled from recycled computer hard disk drives.
I scoffed at the magnet thing for a long time, and then it bit me and was entirely reproducible. That machine ended up having air assist fan issues and had to be exchanged under warranty. So I agree, if there’s something going on with the air assist AND you use magnets, they definitely can cause problems. These days I will only use them toward the front and right of whatever I’m cutting/engraving, to ensure the air assist never travels over them.
