Makelangelo software 7.26.0 beta
This Makelangelo software 7.26.0 beta release brings several changes that should improve drawings and quality of life. It is a pre-release for the very brave. If you do try it then please come to our Discord, introduce yourself, and tell us about the experience so we can make it better.
All new firmware
Before Marginally Clever Robots was even conceived I was learning to move motors with Arduino. As time went on 3D printers arrived and the Marlin firmware in my Prusa printers got really really good. So good, in fact, that I make a fork of the Marlin 2.0.9.1 code and taught it to run a Makelangelo 5 robot. It is smoother, faster, and it means going forward I will have more time to do the things Marginally Clever Robots is good at.
Firmware update tool for Windows
Built into the Makelangelo app is a new firmware update tool. Your robot must be on and connected via USB cable. The app should not be connected to the robot yet.
- avrDude path: is the location of the windows tool that uploads the .hex file to your robot. A copy has been included in this release. If you have Arduino software installed it will try to use that instead.
- *.hex file: is the file to upload. This release includes a file called firmware-2021-09-10.hex.
- Port: is the COM port your robot appears on when USB connected.
- Refresh: will update the COM port list if you add/remove a robot.
- Start: will initiate the upload process. It can take up to 2 minutes.
Sending code to the robot
The correct way to send a file to the robot is to use Makelangelo > Save to File/SD card. Save the *.gcode file to your SD card (included with the robot) and run your code from the robot.
Quality of Life
I want to separate the “make art” part of the app from the “drive robot” part of the app. You will find new top level menu items for all art stuff, and the right hand panel is for driving-only.
They are as follows:
- Makelangelo > New: start over
- Makelangelo > Open File: open an image file and begin converting it to lines.
- Generate Art: The name hasn’t changed, only the location. The artwork does not “stack” – a new creation will replace the old one.
- Art Pipeline: This might be renamed later to “tools”. It includes things like scaling, flipping, and the Simplify and Reorder actions. Until now every image loaded automatically ran simplify and reorder, even if you were not done experimenting with your image conversion. Now you must do it explicitly. Take note of your estimated drawing time, it will often drop by large amounts!
Final thoughts
This release does not respond to connect + drive commands. It tries to connect, does not recognize the new firmware, and then never unlocks the driving buttons. At this time I want to gauge your feelings about the new firmware and the quality of life changes.
The tool works in Windows only. It should make life easier for 99% of the artists out there. The firmware upload tool is only designed for the Makelangelo 5 robot.
This version of the Makelangelo Software app is written for Java 15. Get Java SE 15 here.
For the rest of you… please come to our Discord, introduce yourself, and we’ll figure it out together!
