Perfect Alignment with the Glowforge 

Thanks, Jacob! I really appreciate it! I'll be uploading a lot more videos over the summer. Thanks again!

Thank you! Good luck with the Glowforge - I'm using mine today to cut felt for custom drum parts.

@@JohnKuiphoff I think I might try engraving on a small cutting board today - thanks to you, I am confident I'll get placement correct the first time.

Thanks so much! I really appreciate it. I've also had my Glowforge for three years and it's still going strong! Although, I did recently upgrade to the pro. ha!

@@JohnKuiphoff We were really glad we ordered the Pro when it came time to add an inline fan and we needed an acrylic window pane made and it was much longer than the other models would have been able to accommodate. Another time was when I made acrylic templates for a friend and they were just inches longer than the width of the bed! Thanks again!

David, I literally refer to that chart multiple times each week. ha! I'd love to try screen printing someday.

Thank you!! BTW - I really enjoyed your debt video. I can relate :) Good luck! You can do this.

Thank you so much!!!

Hi John! Thanks so much for the kind words. I'm still learning how to use Premiere, cameras, etc - but I'm really enjoying it! I've had my Glowforge Basic now for about 2.5 years, and it has always done everything that I've needed it to do (as long as you clean the lenses, perform basic maintenance, etc). As you know, if you buy the Glowforge Plus, you're buying the extended warranty and some upgraded components. With that said, I'm very happy with my Glowforge Basic. I'm pretty good with electronics and feel as though I can probably fix any problems if I encounter any (so far, no issues at all!). Feel free to reach out if you'd like to talk more about venting, materials, etc (kuiphoff[at]gmail.com).

@@JohnKuiphoff thanks a ton for the response! The plus would be very hard to justify on my budget. Seeing what you've done with the basic is a huge relief. If it can achieve that quality, that's all I need and more. I'll definitely shoot you an email if/when I get one! Thanks so much.

​@@JohnPaul-nm9jz That sounds good! The basic is an amazing machine. As you probably already know, a referral link will save you $100 on the basic (and you'll definitely want to use that money to purchase an inline fan at some point). Good luck!

Hi Jeff! Thanks so much. I used the same settings for Proofgrade Maple and lightly sanded the burning marks off with an orbiting sander. A lot of times, I'll use a masking paper to ensure that I don't get any burn marks. I made another video where you'll see what materials I sand, use masking, or just leave it be here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-M5AkSfq8cPU.html - it also includes all of the setting for every material. Thanks again!

It’s a great idea if you want to say engrave a purchased item like a cutting board, or engraving MacBooks or things like that. It’s like a jig to get the right alignment every time. Ive wasted so many blanks trying to get my engrave designs lined up based on the glowforge camera alone. I’d most likely cut this out on a piece of cardboard to use it as a jig for future engraves on the same materials again. I didn’t see any machine focusing at all in this video which seems odd. But maybe some people don’t have to focus 🤔 I ALWAYS have to 😂

That’s a really good question. Ha! Some laser cutters (like an Epilog) have a bed that moves up and down to focus the laser - if that was the case, it would be super easy to employ the same method. The Glowforge doesn’t work this way. I also hit this same stumbling block after shooting this video and do not have a great solution. Technically, you could make a small paper or cardboard box that’s roughly the same thickness as your piece and carefully placing your piece in there when the shape is cut. In practice, I’ve resorted to temporarily placing a 1/16” piece of clear acrylic on top of the piece, lightly scoring the outline into the acrylic and checking if It’s off (since you can see through it). If it’s not spot on, I can adjust the position in the software and re-score the acrylic. And check again. When everything looks good, I can take out the acrylic and engrave the real piece.

Kim McKenna thank you! Yes, I do set focus before engraving.

Hi Miranda, I've had that happen, too. Normally, the Glowforge runs a centering routine when it first turns on (my CNC machine does the same thing). This routine tells it where the laser head where it is on the bed. If you turn your Glowforge off and back on again, the issue should correct itself. If it doesn't work, you might need to push the laser to the top of the bed (when it is turned off) before you turn it back on. This will make sure that the laser assembly is moving straight - not crooked or sideways along the rails. You probably won't need to recalibrate unless the lid camera or the lid got jostled in the process. Hope this helps! If not, let me know and we can investigate it further :)

Hi Carissa, sure thing! I'd be happy to help. Normally, running your Glowforge through the calibration routine (app.glowforge.com/maintenance/camera-recalibrator) should make things much easier as the image is already glued to the piece. If that doesn't work, you can try temporarily placing a thin sheet of clear acrylic onto your wood and very lightly scoring the outline your graphic onto the acrylic. You'll be able to if your alignment is off as the line will appear on the clear acrylic and not on your wood. If you need to nudge things - you can do that and run the score line again until things looks good. Once you're done, remove the clear acrylic (without shifting your wood piece) and cut out the wood with the normal wood cutting settings. If you need a quick demo, feel free to reach me at kuiphoff[at]gmail.com - we can set up a quick call. Thanks!

Good question! I usually scan the object using a flatbed scanner so that the dimensions are exactly right. Then, you can quickly trace the object in Adobe Illustrator to get your outline shape. Hope this helps!

The best way that I've done this in the past is to place the plaque (or object) on a flatbed scanner so that you can scan it to scale. You can then use adobe illustrator or another vector program to import the scan and quickly trace the outline of the plaque using the pen tool. That will give you the outline shape you need to make the score on your paper.

@@JohnKuiphoff thanks

Hi Jose! I generally use Adobe Illustrator to design everything. However, others use Silhouette Studio or Google Draw. What kinds of things are you interested in making with the Glowforge?

John Kuiphoff thanks for the information my wife she loves doing craft and wants to look into doing a lot of different stuff.

If I'm using wood, I just sand it with 220 grit and spray it out with canned air (or use a shop vac). You can also mask the material - this works well for other materials like acrylic.

ha! Lysol and magic erasers. I clean it about once every three days or so :)

Hi Alan, I own a Shopbot Desktop Max and I really love it. This is my third CNC machine. I started out with an X-Carve which helped me to learn the basics and eventually purchased a more industrial grade machine. A Shaper Origin might be a good place to start, too. It all depends on what you're hoping to accomplish. Feel free to message me if you'd like to talk more about CNC machines over the phone or Zoom.

Thanks if i would ever like to speak to u how would i be able to.

@@lil_bofo3103 Hi, Alan - here's my phone number: 609-439-9613. Call anytime. Although, I'll probably delete this comment in a few days so that I don't feed the spam bots :)

I have saved u may delete if u like thanks

That's a good question... you're the second person to ask. The way that I demonstrated won't work without the crumb tray... Instead, I'd try to use a 1/16" piece of acrylic and place it on top of the item that you're engraving. Then, I would score the outline onto the sacrificial 1/16" acrylic to see how close it was... I'd nudge the piece and rescore the acrylic sheet until it was perfectly aligned (it might take a few tries). Finally, I'd use painters tape to mark the outline of the piece and go from there... it's definitely a bit more involved than the approach in my video...

@@JohnKuiphoff what settings would you recommend to score painters tape without seeing anything underneath.

@@JohnKuiphoff I'll definitely try the other times. Thanks

Challenge accepted! ha! I've always wanted to build one of those. Theoretically, it wouldn't be difficult to build... it uses the same technologies as any other laser, 3d printer or CNC machine.

ha! The laser has a million miles on it by now... but I do clean it weekly. And yes, that's true! As long as you don't move anything, your engravings will be aligned perfectly to your material (you can "set focus" on each material if you want the camera preview to look right - but it's not required). The Glowforge calibration routine works beautifully! It's makes all the difference. Although, if you rely solely on the lid camera, it may still be off by a millimeter or two nearest the edges even after calibration - usually that's close enough... but not always. Thanks for watching!

@@JohnKuiphoff Hi John, thanks for another good vid. In this instance, did you input the material height or leave it on auto?

BenSCS I left it on auto (although I may have set the focus just to make the camera preview image accurate- even though it’s no necessary to do that).

Hi Brenda! I haven’t heard that before, but I’ll definitely look into that more tomorrow. I’ve been using magnets to hold things down for about 2 years and haven’t had any issues yet. With that said, the magnets that I’m using aren’t very strong. I’m using magnets that I’ve had laying around since I was a little kid. Ha!