Incomplete Drawings

[Anonymous]

Hi! I just tried my first few drawings with the Makelangelo 5. It successfully completed a short (5 minute) drawing. It failed twice to complete a longer (40 minute drawing). After about 25 minutes it just stops and makes no further progress.

Also, I connected to the Makelangelo and left it sitting for a similar amount of time and then it refused to accept commands. I had to disconnect and reconnect to get it to travel or find home.

Any thoughts about what could be going wrong? Thank you for any suggestions!

[Dan]

Sounds like the USB connection is failing. On a Makelangelo 5 you can run from an SD card, avoiding this problem (and probably drawing more smoothly).

In the software generate your gcode, then save as to your SD card, which goes in the slot on the left side of the LCD panel. It’s the same spot as the box that had the belts and weights when you received your M5.

Once the card with the file is inserted, click the dial to bring up the menu, twist to “find home” and click. now repeat those steps but goto “start from file” (iirc?) and then twist down to your chosen SD card file and click again. the drawing will start immediately, so have your pen ready before you click.

Does that help?

[Anonymous]

Thanks, Dan!

It completed the drawing this time! Unfortunately, when printing directly from the SD card, it does not seem to remember where the home position is. Any suggestions for addressing that in my next attempt?

[Dan]

What do you mean, “doesn’t remember the home position”?

Did “find home” work?

For the cable thing, try a different USB cable. Also check that your computer isn’t going to sleep in the middle of a drawing.

[Anonymous]

I do not see “find home” listed as an option. There is a “go home” and a “this is home” option. If I choose the “go home” option, it does not go to the same place that is established as home by using the software. So if I place the paper where the “border” function told me to and then try to print from the SD card, it does not print within the boundaries of the page.

[Dan]

on a makelangelo 5 there should be a “find home” and no “set home” button.

– pressing find home, wait for the robot to complete
– press the Border button, which should drive the pen around the border of the paper. Now you know where to put the paper, or confirm the paper is in the right spot before starting a drawing.

Your PC saves details about the machine which it uses to create instructions for drawings. All Makelangelo 5s are the same size. Have you also used an earlier model on the same PC? If yes, check that the machine number matches your Makelangelo 5’s unique number when you generate pictures to save to the SD card. Creating pictures for a big M3 machine and running them on an M5 might produce the kind of results you’re seeing.

Having said that, an image of what you expect and what you are getting might give more hints about the issue.

[Author]

Posts