Camera Not Aligned After Homing

I’ve setup my camera and gone through the alignment.

I’ve lasered several test items and updated the overlay and adjusted the offset to account for the difference.

I get it as spot on as I can but when I go to home the machine it’s off again.

Is this simply because the hardware switches I’m using for homing are inaccurate?

So ignoring the camera entirely for the moment… if you home and laser the same design 2 or 3 times onto the same material how repeatable is the homing? If that is not 100% repeatable then for sure that will affect alignment.

This can be a factor for sure. Also make sure the switches are well secured as well to make sure that the part of the laser that activates the switches is free of debris or other impediment.

You could try reducing the value of $24 (Homing feed, mm/min) which is the speed at which the switches are reactivated for the second time during a cycle. This might improve accuracy.

Else, getting more accurate switches may be required.

I think we can rule out the homing switches.

I tested it running a job, homing and repeating the job and it’s spot on.

Okay. Good. That’s one less thing.

Question, when you have applied the X and Y shifts in Camera Control window, are you hitting “Save Settings” after that? If not, those settings are not retained.

Other things to look out for:

  1. Do you have a repeatable resting location for the camera? How is it supported? If you have any slack or spring in that mechanism it can shift things slightly
  2. Focus, camera alignment is only good at one distance between camera and material height. If that distance changes even a small amount this will throw off alignment.

Any of these scenarios apply in your case?

The camera is in a fixed location above the bed.

I don’t believe it is either above scenario. Watching the camera live when shutting my enclosure door doesn’t appear to cause the camera to move for example.

Yes, I am saving the offset.

How much shift in the alignment are you seeing? Is the shift only associated with rehoming or can anything else trigger this?

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