Question about Epilog Fusion retract height

Laser
1

What is the z-axis clearance height on the Epilog (Fusion) when it returns to “park” after finishing the job?

I need to mark (i.e., shallow vector cut) inside an area that has four pads in the corners. They stand proud about 0.18". There is room for the laser to travel around while it’s doing the marking, but I’m concerned that it’s going to hit the rear left corner pad either on ingress or egress. I can’t guarantee where the cut will finish in order to predict the path of travel.

EDIT: FWIW, I spent about 30 minutes looking through the manual (gasp) and couldn’t find it in there.

2

I presumed it would be a constituent (possibly the primary) of the figure for “Max Material Thickness”:

image
image742×291 56.5 KB

So I would imagine if your pad falls on the preferred side of that (taking into account wear, tear, and other “adjustments” from the factory-spec) it’d be fine.
But I could be waaaay off base here…

3

I don’t think that logic works.

That specifies how far the bed can be lowered … but it’s not the clearance height. For instance, if I cut a piece of paper, the bed is basically all the way up. The laser won’t rise another 4.5" to move to home.

I should have called it the clearance height. I suspect it’s going to be the distance between the head and the work piece when the wiggler (probe?) is down.

1 Like
4

The height I think you’re describing changes based on the focal length of the lens, so you might find the answer in more lens-centric documentation if they have that available.

5

Yeah, that’s going to be it exactly. If I’ve understood your question, you want to make sure that the head won’t bump into a raised section of whatever it is you’re lasering when it returns to its home position. The height of the head above your material is going to be equal in length to the length of the manual focus on the side of the machine.

Just as a heads up, you’re not supposed to put things in the laser that aren’t flat specifically because of this reason, because the autofocus plunger hangs down very low from the laser head and means your clearance height is only going to be a few mm at best. Someone doing something exactly like this is how that plunger got broken off to begin with.

We’re going to be trying to install the replacement one we got on Saturday morning.