The company has changed the scanning/measuring process from what it was many months ago. It used to be that when the scan happened using proofgrade materials that the head would take a measurement in the center of the bed. It was independent of where the design was placed. If the measuring beam did not hit your material then the cut would be ruined because the focus was way off. They went through several iterations of where to take the measurement. Now it works pretty good.
The height measurement is taken at the same spot as the design and will hit the material if you have placed the design properly. I guess my point is, yes they take a height measurement for Proofgrade. It also does it for non-Proofgrade but not sure how the information is used.
edit: It doesn’t take the measurement in the middle of the design but it is at least part of the design. If for example you have a dozen tokens you would want to cut spread across the bed it would choose one and measure at or near one of the cut lines.
I’m not sure, either, because I’ve been running some focus experiments and you can totally change the focus per operation manually. I did some sequential scores on paper at varying focus distances stepping by .1". After every operation, it pauses briefly to change focus, and you can really see the difference on paper.
This is all in the hopes of eventually doing small bends in acrylic in the future.
I think it uses an IR laser for the thickness measurement, But as @jsc mentioned, you set the focus so I’m not sure what that info does.
Head camera does nothing that the user can see yet.
No It uses a red laser and the head camera. I think it shines it on the material and uses the camera to see where it strikes. They are not coaxial, so by triangulation you can work out the thickness.
I seem to recall that triangle similarity is how the red laser reads surface elevation. Whether or not that information is used at this point I have no idea.
@m_raynsford, I believe that an objective perspective from a seasoned user would be valuable to everyone including the company.
People have mentioned it went wrong if it failed to hit the material in the past so it must actually set the focus.
Not sure how it combines what it sees with the user setting. It would be better to specify the focus relative to the surface of the material instead of the bed. That would also make sense when the material is curved.
If the inside dimensions are not critical the easiest way to make it stronger would be to glue some fillets in the internal corners. That is the easiest way to make strong butt joints.