Why does the camera seem to miss the top inch or so of the material?

[bruce3]

Why does the camera seem to miss the top inch or so of the material? Is there a way to adjust or calibrate this so you don’t waste materials? Thanks!

[markwal]

It misses a lot more than that. You can load in a piece of material much much larger than you can cut.

The view shows you the cutting area and a little bit extra that you can’t reach on the right and the bottom.

Most of it can’t be reached because the gantry is in the way, but there is about 0.5" that can be reached but isn’t yet addressable. We’ll get that back when they expand the cutting area to maximum. Currently we’re limited to 11"x19.5" for cuts. They’re aiming to give use 11.5"x20.4" in the end.

When they get to that target area, you’ll note that it is 0.5" smaller than a proofgrade sheet so that will still be wasted in a single cut. Only way to get it back will be to move the material between cuts.

And no, there’s no way for you to adjust or calibrate your way around it.

[markwal]

Links that you might find useful:

@dan

The bed area is wider and deeper than we planned (18" x 20.4") and we can accommodate thicker materials than planned (up to 2" with the tray removed instead of the 1.5" planned). However, our production units will have 11.5 x 20.4" working area, which is more width but less depth than planned.

This post is from the PRU’s, but when you accepted shipment you should have got a similar page that showed you stuff in this format: heading, done, to do. If you got your machine recently it would have said printing area of 11"x19.5" instead of the 10"x18.5" that is quoted here. (It’s actually a few thousandths smaller than quoted, say 10.97" and 19.45" which folks have discovered by experimentation, I suspect the limit is actually set in mm or stepper steps internally.)

@dan

Done: 18" deep by 20.4” wide working bed. Printing area of 10" deep x 18.5” wide. Maximum thickness of material with tray installed of 0.5”, maximum thickness of material with tray removed is 2”. Focus range of 0.5”.

To do: When the laser is moving at maximum speed, it needs room to slow down near the top, bottom, and both sides. We’ll be updating the software to compensate for that so it can give you more working space - up to 11.5" x 20.4" for slow movements like cuts; a little bit less for faster motions like engraves.

Bonus: Our original specs for thickness were only 1.5" with tray removed - we were able to increase that to 2.0” for you.

[bruce3]

Thanks Markwal! I’m gradually learning the ins and outs. One thing I can say for certain is that I love my Glowforge, and it will see a lot of use.

[PrintToLaser]

When a full sheet is not required, I will cut the sheet down on my saw to a piece big enough for the job.
For my 1,000 token job I would cut the sheet in half, and I could use the whole thing with next to zero waste.

BTW Bruce, I’m a big fan of your work. I love that steel or aluminum cheese.

[bruce3]

Thank you! I just sold the last cheese I had to a guy from Texas. Crating it today.

[PrintToLaser]

I first saw it somewhere online months ago, When you see a person’s mouth drop open - you know you hit the target!

[Rita]

Thanks @markwal!