When do I need to recalibrate the camera?
It sometimes happens that I accidentally touch the camera and the angle to the engraving plane changes. Then I try to restore the old position, but I don’t exactly succeed.
Do I then always have to carry out all the steps such as lens calibration and camera alignment? Maybe just recalibrating the camera orientation or just calibrating the lens is enough?
I wish everyone a Merry Christmas.
In all changes in camera position to the original calibrated surface, an alignment must be made. The height is for machines with the possibility of raising / lowering the machine bed not a problem, but for most diode lases or the old K40 this is a problem.
Changing the angle from camera is even more critical. Change by only 1 degree gives something by approx. 7.5 mm alignment Difference at half a meter …
For me it is the case that the height of the position cannot change. But the angle can be adjusted by touching the camera.
Does the camera have to be exactly perpendicular to the processing surface? The reason I ask is that I built a housing and the processing surface is partially covered when the camera is installed vertically.
no, it’s an advantage, but not necessary. As long as it’s static it’s fine. Mine is off center by about 10 - 15 cm and it works
In my old homemade housing for my diode laser, I just drilled a hole in the top, and it was reasonably centered, I do the same with my old K40, here I hit center, but as I said, right now on the current machine it is not at 90 degrees to the machine bed and still works super accurate. My biggest problem is the light, I can’t dim my camera connected to my Mac, I actually have to turn off the lights in the workshop to get the best picture, a bit annoying.
I’ll try moving the camera once.
I only have a simple webcam that works quite well so far. It is installed on a frame outside the housing. This means I can easily move the material and see it immediately on the camera without to open or close the housing.
I am currently working on making a small box and using leftover materials I have saved. It is such a pleasure to use the camera to find space for the items, it is easy and very precise, currently under 0.5mm deviation.
Hope you achieve similar success.
Those are great results with the camera. A deviation of 0.5 mm should be completely sufficient.
I have another question about the “camera alignment” Do you specify the material thickness in the menu? I’ve already seen videos with and without entering the material thickness.
At the moment I can’t continue working on the project. I probably won’t be able to continue until the new year.
I wish you a happy new year.
Hi Wilfried, Happy New Year to you too.
I have specified 3mm in material thickness and used a 600x400 plywood sheet to engrave the targets on. Because I have a “static” 0:0 point on my machine bed, I can actually reuse this sheet for control or new alignment.
The actual test sheet with circle pattern for lens calibration I have printed on paper and glued on MDF, it is approx. 300X200mm. I have never gotten the new system with AprilTags to work. But the values with circle pattern that I achieve are fine.
As I wrote before, the light is for me the biggest challenge, it should preferably be “dark” before my original camera works optimally under Mac OS.
