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Why LightBurn frames in the wrong place (it's the origin)
The preview looks right and the job burns somewhere else entirely. Before you suspect lost steps or a broken controller: this is almost always the origin setting, and it is a five-minute fix.
Check your job time →1. Three modes that mean three different things
Absolute Coords puts the design exactly where it sits on the workspace grid - what you see on screen is where it burns on the bed. Current Position treats wherever the head is parked as the reference, so the same file lands somewhere new every time you move the head. User Origin uses a point you set deliberately. None is wrong; mixing them without noticing is what causes the problem.
2. Pick Absolute Coords while you are learning
It is the least surprising. The workspace on screen maps to the bed, so the preview is the truth. Current Position is genuinely useful when you are placing a job on an offcut by eye, but it removes the safety of a fixed reference - and it is the mode most people are accidentally in when they post that their laser burns in the wrong place.
3. Machine origin corner and mirrored output
If your design comes out mirrored or rotated, the machine origin corner is set to the wrong corner of the bed. That setting tells the software which physical corner is 0,0. Get it wrong and every coordinate is flipped along one axis - which reads as 'my text is backwards' rather than as an origin problem. Fix it in device settings, not by mirroring your artwork, or you will bake the error into every file you own.
4. Frame before every job
Framing traces the bounding box so you can see where the job will land. It costs seconds and catches origin mistakes, material placement errors and designs that run off the edge of the bed. If framing goes somewhere unexpected, stop - do not run the job and hope. On rotary work especially, frame and check the head returns to where it started.
5. Out of bounds and jobs that run off the bed
If the controller refuses to start or clips the job, the design sits partly outside the machine's travel. Check the design is fully inside the workspace rectangle, that the bed size in device settings matches the real machine, and that no stray object - an empty text box, a leftover guide - is sitting far off-canvas and inflating the bounding box.
Rule of thumb: One mode, consistently. Most placement bugs are someone in Current Position expecting Absolute Coords behaviour.
Open the calculator →FAQ
Why does LightBurn frame in the wrong place?
Usually the job origin mode. In Current Position the head's parked location is the reference, so the job moves every time the head moves. Absolute Coords maps the on-screen workspace to the bed and is far more predictable.
What is the difference between Absolute Coords and Current Position?
Absolute Coords burns where the design sits on the workspace grid. Current Position burns relative to wherever the head is parked when you start, so the same file lands differently each time.
Why is my engraving mirrored?
The machine origin corner is set to the wrong corner of the bed, which flips every coordinate along one axis. Fix it in device settings rather than mirroring your artwork.
Why do I get an out of bounds error?
Part of the design sits outside the machine's travel. Check the bed size in device settings matches the real machine, and look for stray off-canvas objects inflating the bounding box.