The grid in Easel is a handy visual for lining up your design on a rectangle or square piece of material.
By default, Easel uses the front-left corner of the material as the work zero. You can see the design is centered on the material (Edit > Center to Material) and the work zero is on the front-left corner of the material (first move in the simulation). You can verify the work zero is at the front-left by looking at the Position menu and seeing the bottom-left corner radio button selected.
If you use the homing switches and clamp your material to the front-left corner of the wasteboard, the work zero and home position are the same. (More information on Work Zero and Homing)
However, if you clamp your material somewhere else on the wasteboard, you will need to set your work zero to the front-left corner of the material by jogging the bit over during the Carve menu.
Easy, right?
But what if you have an oval shape material or want to ensure you are cutting in the center of your material?
Not to worry, you can change the work zero position to cut from the center out.
Changing work zero position in Easel
1. Set your material size to match your stock exactly. This is very important! For oval or circular shapes, use the diameter for size.
2. Go to Edit > Select All to grab all of the design elements.
3. In the "Shape" menu, select the center position radio button and change XY coordinates to 0, 0.
4. Your design will move off the page, but this is OK. The machine will always try to cut any objects with depth, even if it is outside of the work area. In order to avoid damage, you will manually set the work zero position in the Carve Walkthrough.
5. Click Simulate to verify the toolpath starts from the 0,0 (center) outwards.
Setting work zero position in Carve walkthrough
1. Find the center point of your stock material and lightly mark it.
2. Clamp the material anywhere on the wasteboard and make sure you leave enough room for clamps around your design.
3. Click "Carve" and when you get to the "Work Zero" step, jog the bit over to the mark on our material. If you use the z-probe, probe right on top of this mark.
4. After probing, you will need to tell Easel that you want to Manually set your X, Y work zero position by clicking Manual.
5. Jog the machine until the center of the bit lines with the mark on your material and Use new position.
Reminder: If you use the Z-Probe, you do not need to lower your bit to the bottom left-hand corner of your material. Instead, you can use your z-probe as normal.
6. Once you have confirmed your work zero position, at the center of your material, the rest of the carving steps are the same.