Trouble homing Epilog Helix

[Karl Lautman]

Newbie here. I recently bought a 9-year old Epilog Helix. It's my first laser so I'm still dialing it in and learning my way around. One thing I've noticed is, the red dot is always displaced from the home position by .5" in the Y direction. E.g., when I turn the engraver on, the head (and dot) appears to move to home (0, 0) and then to (0, .5) where it stops. If I move the head somewhere and then reset, it returns to (0, .5). Same thing when I set home to some other point. I've calibrated the red dot, so that's not the problem. Is this normal? If so, why? If not, how can I fix it? Recalibrating per the manual doesn't affect it.

[Scott Shepherd]

Karl, welcome to the forum! Give Epilog tech support a call. They can help you sort out all those issues you've posted. It's free and it doesn't matter if you are the original owner or not. They will help you just the same.

[Karl Lautman]

Yeah, I've contacted them several times, and I guess I will for this, too. Just thought I'd see what feedback I'd get here as this is the most active Epilog forum I've been able to find online.

[Glen Monaghan]

The head may rest at 0, .5, but isn't it still homed at 0, 0? I.e., if you send a square hairline vector that is 1" x 1" and positioned with top left corner at 1, 1, does it actually engrave a 1" square with top left at 1, 1? If so, then the head's resting position at 0, .5 is irrelevant (odd perhaps, but irrelevant).

[Karl Lautman]

I'm not sure where it's actually homed since I'm also having a problem with my artwork printing in the center of the material instead of where it appears on the page I create it on (a problem I've posted here and the Adobe Illustrator forum). I DID speak to Epilog about this today and they said not to worry, that the head "rests" in an arbitrary position that is not the location of home. So, this seems to be standard (though odd) operating procedure. Once I solve my other problem, I'll be able to verify.

[Brian Leavitt]

Yeah my Fusion rests at 1" out from home on both the X and Y axes so I'd think you're probably good.

[Chris J Anderson]

my helix homes to zero then rests out about 12mm, so you may not have a problem...

[Matt McCoy]

It's my understanding that some lasers require a small buffer to ramp up/down as the gantry changes directions during engraving.