M Series Alignment Problem

[mike klein]

I have the M series and seem to have an alignment issue going on here I can't seem to get figured out. I was engraving some 1 x 3 plates today and noticed the text was off center both in the X and Y directions. Re-set the home position twice and it did help somewhat but text is still off by about .040" yet.

Mike

[Mike Null]

Mike:

Go into Corel tools and see what your table and ruler settings are. This is usually where the first problems crop up.

This can be caused by pulling down a 0-0 alignment from the rulers on the drawing page.

[mike klein]

Hey Mike,

Just a note first...the vector table works GREAT!

Ok, now back to my problem. I checked the 2 items you mentioned, OK.
I did re-adjust the home position, but, when setting the red beam, I can not
do it like the book says. What I did was engrave a 1 x 3 plate with both a horz. line and a vertical line. Measured the distance off from center and took half of that distance to offset the home position. Meaning, the red beam pointer is actually
over top the rulers, not right in the corner.

Re-cut the 2 lines and they are perfect (within .005). Much better than the
.040-.050 I had before. But, that don't explain why the pointer does not
line up on the corner of the rulers when in setup mode. I'm sure it thru
all my templates off.

Mike

[Gary Shoemake]

Could the red pointer be off?

[Wyatt Wolfe]

Your red beam is not adjusted - I know adjusting mine was a bear.. not sure about your machine - but there is an adjust for all of them

[mike klein]

I went thru the red beam alignment with a sales rep one day and its a very
time consuming job....I just don't understand why all of a sudden it went out
of alignment in the first place. Been running the machine for months with no
problems and then all of a sudden today it starts this stuff.. Yesterday it was
my HP 8550mfp that took a crap, and now this issue. What next!

[Bruce Volden]

Mike and all?


Has anyone ever noticed when text is aligned/ centered etc. it looks fine to the eye.....now magnify (greatly) to the center point...now pull down arrange, convert to curves....see where the alignment goes???? What's up with that. Or....is it just my Corel??


Bruce

[Mike Null]

Mike
Thanks for the kind words about the cutting grid.

Have you checked the rulers on your table. Mine were out of alignment once or twice in 8 years.

The other alignment problem I had dealt with the carriage. It was well out of alignment (my fault) and I could not get anything to register right. The fix was simple but to check it just pull it all the way to the front of the machine and see if both sides hit the stops evenly.

[Mike Null]

Bruce,

I just tried your example but could not duplicate it. I noticed no change when i converted to curves. BTW, control Q is a shortcut to convert to curves.

[Rodne Gold]

The red beam is an indicator and is not accurate as it has its own mirror system and led housing etc , easily disturbed when cleaning the mirror nearest the tube. Rather vector engrave the outline of the box on card , lay the plate down on this outline and then engrave the text. Using the red beam as a positioning indicator is gonna give you hassles.
One of the best features of the GCC driver is the ability to engrave from the centre of an object , its normally very easy to find a centre,
You might as well get to grips with the beam alignement proceedure of the mercury , due to the mirror housing construction etc , the alignment goes out quite quickly.
We align all our lasers monthly.
We also run a check weekly , what we do is take exactly 3mm pex and setup a small square to be cut out of it , we run this at the top left corner till it JUST cuts thru or at a known setting , just move the head to the top right , bottom left , bottom right and centre of the bed and do the same , if the square doesnt cut at all points using that setting , then alignment is out.
Another thing to check is the shaft encoders on the motors , the housing that conatians the shaft encoder is not sealed and dust and debris get in , often just cleaning the encoder stops odd shift and alignment of engraving issues. After cleaning , then seal the gaps in the encoder housing using masking tape to stop this recurring.

[Bruce Volden]

Mike,


When I zoom in to the max on text (selected), and then convert to curves, my text is no longer centered on the horizonital axis. It ALWAYS moves off to the right several thousandths!! Depending on the font it can be off quite a bit~especially noticeable when I have a very small engraving area (1/4" or less).

Can anyone else duplicate this?


Bruce

[Jerry Allen]

Bruce,
Yes mine does the same. I assume it's the way Draw calculates a center.
In my drafting programs, an arc always has the original center as a full circle would have. Corel moves the center to the center of the extents of the bounding rectangle.
When you convert from Text to curves I suspect a similar thing is happening, and Draw sees the new objects with a different extent box. Not that it should be that way, but apparently it is.

[Rob Bosworth]

What machine do you have? Is it a GCC M or is it a ULS M?

[Mike Null]

Bruce:

On re-trying your example I was able to produce it. I tried text 1.497" in length and when converted to curves it became 1.485". The center changed by +.006".

I have no explanation.

[Bruce Volden]

Mike


THANKS!! I thought it was only on my end but at the same time I couldn't see how that could be possible!


Bruce

[Dave Jones]

I haven't tried to reproduce it, but might have a possible explanation. When you place text, fonts have a certain amount of space around the letters. Some letters might have a little extra space to the left or right of the letter. The amount of space is different for each letter and is what keeps letters from literally touching each other within a word.

While the text is still in font form, that space on the left and/or right is part of it and is counted when measuring it's width and is also used in deciding where the center is.

Once you convert to curves, the empty spaces on the ends are no longer part of the obeject. The width is now slightly smaller, even though the letters are exactly the same size and in the same position. The center has also moved and is now truely the center of those letters, rather than the center of the boxes containing the letters.

Of course I could be wrong, but I suspect that is what you are seeing happen.

BTW, i mentioned left right, but the same thing is happening up/down (top/bottom) also.

[Mike Null]

I concur with your analysis.