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Send a lot of commands to an Arduino automatically

2014-01-29 Dan

Makelangelo art drawn with Gcode

I’ve written some tutorials and published code samples about teaching an Arduino like device to understand Gcode, the language of modern CNC manufacturing machines like 3D printers. I’m very grateful that so many people have found it useful and are building great robots. By the way: If you’ve made something, please share it in our forum gallery! It really inspires and motivates me.

Now that the devices are good at listening to commands, I’m getting requests almost daily for a program that can send a lot of commands to the Arduino.

Today I’m pleased to announce the release of GcodeSender version 1 for free on Github.

It will “talk” to any serially-connected device at 57600 baud. It waits for the “>” character between each line so that it doesn’t flood the other end of the line and cause a mistake. It can send a lot more than gcode, but I have a history of picking terrible program names and I’m reluctant to break with tradition.

It should work with all the samples and tutorials I’ve written in the recent past, including all the robots available through the shop. If you’re familiar with the Makelangelo software then this program won’t be any surprise to you.

Please give it a try and leave your comments in the forums.

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New product: Bearings!

2014-01-23 Dan

Today I’m happy to announce that we’re now stocking three kinds of bearings to help you solve your mechanical challenges. (more…)

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Delta Robot update, Jan 2014

2014-01-14 Dan

delta-robot

When I get advice I don’t ignore it and I don’t argue about it. If you take the time to help me, I take the time to listen. Back in October a customer has some very good (tho unflattering) feedback. The two big issues were the quality of the servos and the quality of the 3D printing. In the time since then I’ve worked on the issues from several directions:

1. I ceased making the older model delta robot.
2. I’m redesigning the delta robot to have zero 3d printed parts. If I use plastic parts in the future kits they’ll probably be cast or injection molded.
3. I’ve made great strides to improve my 3D printers. I only use them for prototyping. If you need something printed, I’d be happy to help.
4. I’ve removed the servos from the delta robots and switched to stepper motors. I have the steppers and electronics in stock as part of the rotary stewart platforms, anyways. Having a single board for all my kits makes developing software a lot easier, which means more features for you faster.

When the new model is released I will put the previous design on thingiverse. The new model will have complete step by step assembly guides on learn.marginallyclever.com.

I’m truly grateful that you believe in my work and I want to find more ways to show my thanks to you. Let me know what I can do.