As I’ve done in the past, I can remove the tray and put my 0.635" wood on a platform to bring it below the current 0.433" limit. But what happens if I don’t? This wood clears the head completely when on the tray. What result would I expect if I just used it and told it it was 0.433"? Would it work? Would it be way darker than it would be normally because it’s closer than it thinks? Would it be less focused, causing thicker engraves?
I’m just curious if anybody’s done this and what their result was. (I haven’t checked, but I bet @mpipes probably did it yesterday and will post it today if he hasn’t already. )
If I understand, the differential will manifest as out of focus, and the only way I know to see is to test.
All of a sudden I’m back near square one. The finer power control is what I am working with now to see how settings translate onto material. Testing card stock right now.
Setting a manual thickness in the GUI is only used for optical placement. The GF is always going to use the red laser to do the actual focus and distance determination and will error out if the material is too tall (too close to the head). OK, at least on my PRU. YMMV.
I don’t remember the actual height but the air assist port behind the head hangs down a LOT lower than the head. I’m pretty sure 0.635" is higher than the clearance and the port will strike the wood. You don’t want to hear the sound my unit made when the metal port wedged itself on the tall wood and couldn’t move.
I have not tried this, and would not recommend it, but I would point out that the air assist is on the far side of the gantry from the head, so if you restrict yourself to less than a certain amount of Y travel you won’t get a strike. In general, that seems to me a lot of danger for a minimal benefit, even if the autofocus doesn’t give an error.
At best, the beam will be out of focus against the material, with the material focal plane now somewhere in the top half of the hourglass cone.
At worse, the reduced airflow across material so close to the beam exit aperture will cause additional reflective heat, possibly causing severe damage to the head assembly.
In short, don’t go closer than recommended. Don’t be an Icarus.
)