I do have a laser installed on my machine…mind sharing any tips you may have or your workflow on how to get things lined up consistently with indexing ?
The key for me is that, as of now, there are only two available absolute positions I can consistently send the machine to. They are at max left on the X axis (up against the rail), and at either end of the Y axis travel (up against the ends of the leadscrew.)
I position the machine hard up against the forward and left stops and think of that as ‘home’. My laser cross hairs now show me that location and provide visual guides for the X and Y axis travel. Frequently I will position the workpiece, if possible into this angle, zero the axes in FireControl, and cut. Often, due to workpiece constraints, I will execute a jog on the X and/or Y axes, rezero in FireControl and cut from there.
So three things make a big difference for me; 1) the position directly below the cutting orifice (which represents the origin position in my CAM tool,) 2) the line of travel in the X axis, and 3) the line of travel in the Y axis. These allow me to position the workpiece such that I can get pretty close to millimeter accuracy in the positioning vs cut. Without the lines of travel, it’s too easy to get things out of alignment once travel starts. No biggie if you’ve got margin on the workpiece, but for recutting or for close cuts (I often cut on things like circular saws,) it’s essential.
I would prefer not to run my machine hard against the end stops, so home switches would be awesome.
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Great idea…thanks alot!
I would cut in a little bit on your finish end then go to your start end then you should have a nice cut all the way through