WHERE now M114 like Repraps, jogging now reports current position.

Last night at the VHS Andrew showed me Gcode command M114 which tells the robot “tell me where you think you are right now.” I had this implemented as a WHERE command in Arduino. I’ve now switched it in both branches. I’ve also added it to every Jog Motor or Drive Manual button event, so every time you move the motors by hand it will tell you the current location. This can be handy for calibration: I can ship a 10x10cm grid with the kit that you tape around 0,0 and then you can jog to see if your pictures are going to come out square.

Would it be OK to store each Drawbot’s dimensions in the cloud? That way a given Drawbot would only have to be set up once instead of once per computer. I don’t know if there’s really a need, it just crossed my mind.

A Big Day of Firsts!

Today is the first time I import product. UPS called and asked if I had a broker. I said “Yes.”
“Who?”
“Me?”
“Ok. Would you like the shipment number?”
It was that easy? I thought they’d try to talk me out of it or something. Wipes nervous sweat from brow. Now I need to get down to the airport and explain to them the situation. To whit:

Later today I’m also getting the final parts for another drawbot shipment and then I’m building a lightbox so I can start getting product photos into my shop. Zencart is hiddeous but it’s a start.

I’m really starting to grow into the role of businessman. Facilitating opportunities in a way where everybody wins while making money is ridiculously feel-good.

I’ll have another post later today with my experience at the CBSA.

Colored JTextPane logging for Drawbot, minor updates

– changed manual driving buttons. “centered” now says “this is home” and “home” now says “go home”.
– changed log window so text is colored for better readability.
– disabled the paper config and the machine config until the robot is connected.
– fixed a bug where configuration was not being sent to the robot, which screwed up all movements.

I really hope I can get limit switches working soon. Then I can auto-calibrate, which means less configuring for you.

Skycam debugging II, first test movements

I tested each drawbot separately with the new skycam drivers and – after several hours – found a one letter typo that was messing everything up. Then I decided to re-read the critical sections and found two more. A-ha!

Once each Drawbot was moving correctly in their planes, I reconnected them and began moving in all three dimensions.

I added a way to invert the rotation of a single motor because I wound the string backward and it was easier to flip the code than rewind the bobbin.

Right now it’s convinced that 12:00 is X+ and 3:00 is Y+. Not fatal but not what I expect.

Here is a model for a plotter you can use to safely attach a camera to your Skycam. If anyone buys a skycam in a kit I’ll be sure to send one of these along.

Here is some early video.