I have a Boss 1420 and purchased a camera a couple of months ago. I just finally got it installed and have been having a lot of issues.
When I try and calibrate, it takes me about 30 attempts per section and even then I’m usually in the .8’s and have only once gotten as low as .5. I did turn the camera to focus it. This part of the process is taking me approximately 45 minutes.
Once I complete the calibration and alignment exercises, my camera is still approx an inch off. I’ve done each step of the process four times today and I’m still unable to get it to show up where I need it to be.
I have the camera mounted on top of the door and haven’t moved the door. I did make sure that the laser was autofocused prior to going through the exercises because I did see somewhere that helped.
Is there a trick to calibrate? I have it completely flat, honeycomb isn’t there, printed the same size as recommended. Please help!! Thanks!!!
Here is an image of what the alignment is doing. It’s currently directly over the center of the mark at the 3 but you can see how far off I had to place the laser head in order to get it where I need it to go. image|350x194
You said you purchased “a camera” a couple months ago - is it ours, or something else? Can you show what you see in the preview window, so I can see how the camera sees the work area?
Yes, I am set to Abs Coordinates and it is the camera that I purchased from you guys. It’s not the new big one but the one that was recommended for the Boss 1420.
You should zero out the Widht / Height / Shift values, then click ‘Save Settings’ before you run the alignment job. Those settings will offset the result and work against you.
Even when they are all at zero, it is still very, very off. That isn’t the issue. Here it is showing how far off the laser head is positioned in LB in order to be above the center of the mark at 3.
The overlay also doesn’t seem to be filling my entire workspace even thought the camera is positioned directly overhead as seen on the preview. Do I need to change something in order to resolve that and could that be the issue with alignment that I’m running into?
Okay… I seem to have resolved my issue on getting the camera to align properly.
These are the steps that I took in case anyone else runs into the same issue.
I didn’t realize that I needed to cut the four marks each time that I was calibrating. So once I did the entire process again (still not able to get marks lower than .76) and recut the marks. I was able to calibrate to the marks in the exact position they were cut in order to get my machine updated correctly.
I also made sure to focus on the material prior to calibrating with the four marks.
If you have any suggestions on how to get the pattern to read better, I’d love them but at least I can get my camera to go where I want it to go. Thanks for all of your help!
The pattern card you show above just appears to be printed on paper and placed in the machine as is. It should be glued to something to make it absolutely flat, like foam board, a piece of MDF, or something like that.
And yes, the marks have to be cut by the laser - when the laser does it, they’re placed exactly where we tell them to go, and we’re measuring where those points are in the camera view so we can accurately place work. If you take a previous run of the markers and just drop it on the laser, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll put them exactly where the laser did.
Thank you! I’ll affix it to something moving forward. And I mentioned to a couple of others having the same issue that you need to cut the marks each time and they hadn’t been doing it either. I’m not sure if I totally missed that step but you may want to just highlight it in your instructions. I’m so excited to have a working camera now. Really appreciate your help and products!
The Camera Alignment wizard runs a job on your machine that engraves 4 cross-hair marks that you tag in a window so it knows where they are. If you complete it and the alignment isn’t good, you can re-use those marks if you haven’t moved anything yet.
Once you remove the material with the marks on it, you’ve moved them, so if you do the calibration again a week later, you need to let the machine re-make the marks in the right spot - you can’t just take that material with the marks already on it and drop it on the laser, because you won’t get them in the same place as they were when the laser ran them.
