Bed Positioning & Alignment Help

[ModoCreative]

Hello,

We are a small design studio creating personalised prints, gifts and artworks. A few months ago we got a LS3050 PRO and we have so far done a fairly good job experimenting with the settings and materials to get the finish we want.

However we are finding as our orders increase we would hugely benefit from producing more than one item per laser run. The problem we have is that the working area of the bed is 500X300mm, yet the Z-axis platform which the bed sits on is a good 3-5mm larger on all sides. This causes the bed to move around which skews the corresponding datum point. I appreciate at this stage that we may have missed something in our initial training, so please point that out to us if we have?

We are personalising pieces of oak. We currently have a grid template with the product outline created in illustrator which has been etched onto a 500X300 piece of MDF. We import the template design file into Lasercut, centre, so it is in the right position for the MDF, place the piece of oak on the MDF template, then line up the MDF within the platform by eye(using "test"). We have found removing the removable bed and placing this MDF on the platform is easier. But we have yet to find which position on the platform is consistently correct, pushing the MDF to the top left, bottom right etc.

Our ideal scenario would be to have a fixed template on the bed, with the product outline arrayed, be able to import a corresponding template file and press start without the need for lining up by eye.

Any thoughts or experiences on how to solve this would be hugely appreciated.

Kind regards,
Oli

[MathewHPC]

Hello

I suggest producing a jig for the job.
If the machine is run from datum (to do this un-tick the immediate box on the left hand side bar of the lasercut 5.3 software) it will operate from the top right hand corner of the bed. all objects in the software will be cut in relative to were it is positioned on the bed. using this you could cut the shape of each piece of oak you wish to process out of some 3 mm ply that fits the whole bed then you would be able to input the personalized text in each product turn of the cut output lines and re download the file, the machine would then do the engraving and omit the cutting but the engraving would be lined up with the Position of the object in the bed. the jig is used just to maintain the position of the objects making it consistent.
If you are having problems keeping the jig still you could clamp it to the bed.

Regards
Mathew

[PhillyDee]

Exactly as above. A method I use quite often, I use MDF instead as its cheaper. You can even laser in finger holes, for easier removal, engrave data onto it etc.

[Tom]

Finger holes are a must
Don't push a snug(very snug)piece of mdf into the bed of a 6840 with no finger in

[ModoCreative]

Hi Guys,

Thank you for your help and advice, creating that template is something that we will do asap.

Kind regards,

Oli