Focus to half material thickness

[mgmax]

99% of our profiles are: Cut: focus d/2 (middle of material), engrave focus 0 (on the top) Is there some idea to make this easier? I am still looking for a solution, but already wanted to share my thoughts.

[t-oster]

Right now, I don't have an idea how to integrate this to the UI without making it more complicated. Maybe I cann make the focus-value accept formulas where the material-thickness can be used as variable.

Did you check the new XML-format used for lasercutter-settings? For your set of materials, maybe you can auto-generate them.

[t-oster]

still needed?

[computercarguy]

I really like this idea. Normally I focus my laser to the top of the material, which works fine for etching and cutting thin materials. Unfortunately, this sometimes means that thicker materials need more than 1 cut pass, or to do the cut as a separate job after manually refocusing. (My current laser cutting software doesn't control the height of the bed and I'm looking at Visicut as a potential replacement.)

Even with multiple passes, the material isn't cut, due to the laser being unfocused, or the unfocused laser causes unintended/undesired effects to the edges of the material. Having the software automatically refocus the laser mid-job for different effects would be very desirable.

[mgmax]

Visicut can already do this, just set the focus you want for each pass.

[computercarguy]

Mgmax, thanks for the info! I guess I need to RTFM. :-)