[Dan]

Can I just say… you guys are awesome. It would have taken me forever to get even this far.

[Dan]

Well… it doesn’t look like a hardware problem. I’d try asking the Arduino software people if they know what’s going on. https://forum.arduino.cc/

After you solve this challenge, there will be another, and another. That’s how building things goes. If it was easy it wouldn’t be any fun 🙂

[Dan]

I had this problem recently. Vector3.h was in the same folder as the main .ino file, but it still wouldn’t compile. I had to reinstall arduino and then it was fine. 😛

[Dan]

Yikes!

[Dan]

update 7cf008fa3828cc075fa4ddf8e4e075436c8df783 improves IK and motor stepping. Also added PLOTTER_RADIUS and PLOTTER_Z for inverse kinematics.

M101 Qnnn Xnnn Ynnn Znnn

adjust the position of one motor.

Q – the index of the motor. 0=NW, 1=NE, 2=SW, 3=SE.

at least one X Y or Z value must be given to make effective change. nnn is a value in cm measured from the center of the work envelope (the area in which the plotter can move).

M102

report on the position of the four motors.

D0 Qnnn Annn

Jog one motor a given number of steps

Q – the index of the motor. 0=NW, 1=NE, 2=SW, 3=SE.

A value must be given to make effective change. nnn is a value in steps. for references, a 400 step motor at 1/16 microstepping and a 20-tooth gt2 pulley moves 160 steps in one mm of belt pull, or 6400 steps in one rotation.

[Dan]

Having gone as far as I want right now with https://www.marginallyclever.com/forums/topic/zarplotter-4-motor-drawing-machine/, I am confident the code works in a 2D plane. Now to add the 3rd dimension for skycam.

[Dan]

Please see this other thread for development details: https://www.marginallyclever.com/forums/topic/zarplotter-4-motor-drawing-machine/

[Dan]

Actually, the first thing I would suspect is your USB cable. it says your PC can’t talk to your Arduino.

From the sound of things you’ve made a number of changes, including parts with which we are unfamiliar. Try uploading to just a regular Arduino. if that works, then add one part back on, and so on until you find the one that causes the problem.

[Dan]

I have a challenge for those of you following along with the zarplotter.

The RUMBA board has room for two extra stepper motors. Can you design an add-on system that would let the system swap pens on its own?

[Dan]

@jstoddart:

D0 Rnnn Lnnn Unnn Vnnn

you must have at least one of each LRUV. the nnn is a positive or negative whole number for number of steps. on a 1/16 microstepping motor that’s normally 400 steps it will take 6400 steps to move one full rotation, or 160 steps per mm.

[Dan]

Please send a picture or video of what is happening, we can probably advise on a solution. All machines are tested (and firmware installed) before they leave our facility. The 3.2 is known to be much harder to operate than the 5. So far it sounds like you’ve done everything right.

[Dan]

If you’re compiling the development branch of the code, make sure you have the latest and you’ll have to check your configuration.h settings. If you’re compiling the last stable release available on our website, check your Arduino settings. I recently had to reinstall Arduino after an automatic upgrade made it go really dumb – it couldn’t build projects that were spread across multiple files (which this is).

[Dan]

Quality of drawing is notably affected by belt tension. The better they are tensioned, the better it draws. if even one belt loses tension… well, don’t do that.

[Dan]

I was emailed two questions:

Which motor goes to which RUMBA driver?

NW: X
NE: Y
SW: Z
SE: E0

What gcode command moves the plotter?

G0 is a rapid linear move
G1 is a slow linear move

G0 Xnnn Ynnn Znnn Fnnn

Not all of the XYZF have to be used, but at least one must appear on the line.

X – the amount of east-west movement in mm. X+ is right.
Y – the amount of north-south movement in mm. Y+ is north.
Z – the amount of up/down movement in degrees. 90 is pen fully down. Typically we find 120 is more than enough to lift the pen.
F – the feed rate or speed of movement, in steps per minute. We have been running at a 12500 for XY and 600 for Z.

You can find more about gcode here: http://reprap.org/wiki/G-code

[Dan]

I strongly recommend you use an electric drill to slowly drive in the M3x35 screws or your arm is going to be tiiiiiiiired…. so tired.

[Dan]

I feel good enough about the test drawings that I’ve now released the plans and the 3D printed files.

ROBO-0048 Zarplotter table top drawing robot

[Dan]

@Zarplotter is on our forums. Hello! FYI we won’t be selling this machine – instead I might sell the plans and let people figure the rest out themselves. I already plan to give full attribution for the idea to you and a link to your square page (for buying a zarplotter ready-made).

[Dan]

Do any of you have a 3d printer? I’d like to see some ideas for an automatic pen changer that the zarplotter could use. Something like maybe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuZ5lk2J5p4

[Dan]

@fishingincairns spools were used on the original makelangelo and they suck. the diameter of the spool is constantly changing as it winds up, and it’s worse when the string loops over itself in unpredictable ways. Then there’s the question of which string to use? I have belts on hand and I know them well. When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

[Dan]

View this post on Instagram

Zarplotter math seems to be improved. #robot #draw #art #plotter #sharpie #markers

A post shared by Marginally Clever Robots (@imakerobots) on Aug 16, 2017 at 11:51am PDT

View this post on Instagram

@beyonce from 2016 drawn in 19m43s, 52345 commands on a marginallyclever zarplotter. #beyonce #music #artistsoninstagram

A post shared by Marginally Clever Robots (@imakerobots) on Aug 16, 2017 at 5:13pm PDT

[Dan]

So… I know the motors are 45mm wide (from corner of table to point between idlers). I know the plotter is 60×60. I thought I could treat the pen holder as a point by saying machine width -= 15 and machine height -=15, then doing all my belt calculations from there.

@kukomiguel made the post above suggesting maybe I’d optimized wrong. Fair point! So I removed the optimizations. Suddenly everything was looking good. What?! Well, who cares, it goes now.

@jstoddart as for running 1h+, I haven’t yet. the beyonce drawing was ~20 minutes. I need a longer picture to see how it performs. Can I see a pic or vid of your machine? It sounds a lot like the one at the Interval of the Long Now (https://theinterval.org/)

[Dan]

Code finally compiles without error. On to testing!

[Dan]

RAMPS pin definitions are in configure.h. change the #define MOTHERBOARD to be RAMPS instead of RUMBA and it should just work. I haven’t tested it, so please check it carefully and report back.

[Dan]

Skycam RUMBA code has been checked in. There’s a strange compiler bug that’s being misreported. it says some things are undefined when they’re clearly there AND they’re the same as in the Makelangelo firmware. I suspect poorly matched #ifdef #endif pairs, but I don’t know for sure.

[Dan]

Find the cartesian apex of an uneven pyramid given the position of the four corners and the length of each diagonal side from askmath

[Author]

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