I often make projects that combine vcarving and epoxy filling with laser engraving with my J-tech 7w. As my projects have gotten more ambitious, I am struggling with how to get X-Y dead on between laser and cnc bits.
The eyeball method of focusing the laser at an intended X0 Y0 isn’t precise enough for me in some situations because the dot of light on a target is much larger than the .0075 beam that actually vaporizes wood and one can’t see well enough to get the dot truly centered on a target point.
Do any of you have a method for dead-on accurate registration?
Hi John,
You can use the MDI to fire the laser manually on low power to make a dot on the waste board. Once you’ve done that, you can switch over to the router and lower the Z so that the V-bit you plan to use barely contacts the waste board. Raise it back up and out of the way and you can measure the distance of between then to find the offset of the laser. Once you have your offset value, you can calculate the exact zero point you’ll want to set.
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I am waiting for my Elite foreman with a 44w to be delivered and the same question has popped into my head.
Using other equipment I have done the following and hope it will work with this table.
Cut a couple inches worth of square out of 1/4 plywood using the laser and note your corner X,Y points.
Leave the stock fixed in place after you remove the cut square.
Using a 1/2/3 block (Maybe a XYZ Touch probe block would work?), put it in the the scorner of the square you have just cut out. Zero using a tool with know dimensiosn (I used a 1/4 drill blank I had laying around) and note the X,Y.
You know the 1/2/3 block dimensions, although a micrometer is a wonderful thing for belt and suspenders.
Do the math with the original X,Y laser points you told the laser to cut with and you have your offsets to zero the laser to the the center of the spindle with.
Obviously I have left out the excrucuating details but this concept has worked for me.
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