[ragstian]

Hi

The above line does not work as is, delete the “ ” from the end to get it to work.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
RGDS
Ragnar

[ragstian]

Hi

The above line does not work as is, delete the “ ” from the end to get it to work.
Fantastic program! Well done!

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
RGDS
Ragnar

[ragstian]

Hi.

Quote; Yes, figured out where that came from pretty quickly. ;)
Is that good or bad?

The motor voltage check can still be implemented by checking for the appropriate firmware version first. I have tested it – it works.

Manual check NOT important? I disagree!

RGDS
Ragnar

[ragstian]

Hi.

Quote; Also, if that’s not your screenshot, where did it come from?

The screenshot is from my “addition” to the eggbot extension. My version can be found in this thread.
http://forum.evilmadscientist.com/discussion/337/checking-ebb-motor-voltage-from-inkscape#Item_38
I don’t recommend users to “upgrade” to the version(s) found in that thread as the changes in 2.4.0 is NOT included.
I have however “patched” 2.4.0 to incorporate the “read motor voltage” – it runs fine on my system – I can upload if any interest.

I was sort of “disappointed” ;-) that my “read motor voltage” addition was not included in the last 2.4.0 eggbot extension. ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-)

RGDS
Ragnar

[ragstian]

Hi.

Hi Brian. Any chance of getting an updated version anytime soon?
Would really like to have a working solution (from Inkscape) incorporating the ‘long moves’.

Quote (April 30th ;-) );

I’ll let you know what’s going on as soon as I can squash this bug.
I got pulled away from this for another couple projects that needed
work tonight. So it will need to be tomorrow night.

RGDS
Ragnar

[ragstian]

Hi.

The file was most likely produced using Inkscape and saved as PDF. By ‘opening’ the file in Inkscape and saving as SVG you should be good to go. I have changed the stroke to red as this is a requirement by some of the laser cutting services.

Bulbdial Face SVG

If ponoko refuses the file try saving as ‘plain svg’ (stripping off Inkscape info.)

RGDS
Ragnar

[ragstian]

Hi Brian.

I have moved the servo horn on the servo in order to lift the pen a few mm off the egg when in the reset (middle) position. I ended up on having pen up / pen down values of 24 and 19 respectively in Inkscape. When resetting the EBB the servo does a quick ‘pen down’ movement before going to the middle position causing the pen to ‘peck’ the egg. Any possible solution for having the servo go straight to middle position?
Would it be a good idea to incorporate the ‘new’ servo horn setting in the Eggbot assembly guide?
(I once suggested pre-setting the potmeter to middle position on the EBB board to avoid some of the beginners problems using the eggbot but generated no interest whatsoever from EMS ;-)  )

Installed the com0com software, works like a charm. What are you using as a terminal after MS removed Hyperterminal from windows?

RGDS
Ragnar
 

[ragstian]

Hi.

Making changes to the eggbot extension to take advantage of a home command might be within my capabilities – worth giving it a try – the difficult part for me is to wrap my head around the OOP (Object Oriented Programming) part ;-)

Where did you find the hub4hub serial splitter? I have used Eterlogic virtual port software to do this – unfortunately the 64bit version has to be bought, the 32bit version is free but will not install on a 64bit OS – the price for the 64 bit version is very reasonable – might go ahead and buy it.

Interesting how the QB command return got ‘jumbled’ – I am curious what is causing this just ‘every now and then’. Nevertheless – I am impressed by you coding!

RGDS
Ragnar

[ragstian]

Hi.

I can live with the servo in center at reset – my ‘solution’ is just to move the servo horn so this becomes the ‘default pen up’ position.

I’am sort of glad you got the timeout as well, I was about to suggest that this ‘bug’ would not become apparent unless you were ‘power-plotting’ – like I am doing – for hours.

For the resume option to work it would be nice to have the option to write the EBB commands to a file as well – by analyzing the file might be possible to figure out why it fails.

Another option that would be nice is to have the EBB ‘store’ the ‘home’ position before starting the plot by setting the x and y count to zero.  By adding and subtracting the steps for egg and pen respectively as it goes along it would then be possible to return ‘home’ by a command. As it is now the inkscape extension ‘assumes’ that the last command sent is executed by the EBB and it’s resuming to the following step, but if the EBB is paused ‘mid-command’ some steps will be lost.

Happy Coding!

RGDS
Ragnar

[ragstian]

Hi.

A few observations on the 2.2.5 version.
 
Inkscape is unable to make any plots with this version.
Inkscape receives an incorrect return on Pen Up/Pen Down as it’s inserting a ‘Null Move” SM command according to the EBB Command manual recommendation. This can be seen by setting the pen height using the eggbot extension in Inkscape. Seems like the return value from the SM command is incorrect or not being accepted by Inkscape. When trying the SM command in my standalone program the response seems OK.

Response trying to plot: BadResponce.txt

Note that the ‘Pause’ button was never pressed, I have seen this behavior on the previous versions as well where the plot stops with inkscape reporting that the ‘pause’ button was pressed – when it was not, trying to ‘resume’ never returns to the correct place ruining the plot. I have tried to lower the baud rate as I thought it might be caused by ‘incorrect’ commands sent to the EBB, but this does not help. Maybe a bug?

The ‘QC’ command is ‘broken’ as well; the reported value for voltage is always ‘0001’ no matter if motor voltage is applied or not.

A last comment on the pen arm servo behavior; on resetting the board the servo is always returned to mid position, in my opinion this is bad as the eggbot will lower the pen onto the egg ‘ruining’ my plot! I would much rather have it to lift the pen using the last stored pen-up value.

On a more ‘positive’ note;

The ‘long move’ command is working like a charm! (Running from standalone python program.) Well done! This opens up a plethora of new possibilities for the eggbot and EBB board! (I can now draw a line from upper left to lower right corner filling in the egg in one move or – issue a ‘long move’ and ‘manually’ draw or fill in close to the end of the eggs. This is the closest thing to continuous rotation! I am doing the ‘happy dance’ right now!!

Happy Coding!

RGDS
Ragnar

[ragstian]

Hi.

Great news Brian. I just made a plot in Inkscape of a one layer “Wave Winding” coil.
(See Wave Winding machine post.)
The image is 102400 pixels in width. This plots fine. For a 10 layer coil the width will be 1024000 pixels which does not work at the moment.

RGDS
Ragnar

[ragstian]

Hi.

The plot is  a copy of “Zentangle art” by Stoshi – see her blog page here: Stoshi’s Blog
( I got her permission to post the image as long as she got the credit she deserves.  )
She called the image “La Bella”, a great work of art! I traced the image by hand in Inkscape to get a SVG file.
Link to original image; “La Bella”

It is a nice test as the plot consists of a lot of small line segments causing a lot of pen-up/downs and moves. Takes about half an hour to plot. As you see I have ‘elongated’ the image somewhat to improve resolution. Will try to improve resolution further by smooting the egg surface. Right now the ‘rough’ surface causes the ‘jagged’ lines.

Are you posting the source code for 2.2.4?

RGDS
Ragnar

[ragstian]

Hi Brian.

Testing of 2.2.4 started,
Operation of servo now back to ‘normal’. ;-)
Will try some of my plots.
Plots started OK.

(What’s the difference between EBF_v224.hex and EBF_v224.unified.hex?
(I have loaded EBF_v224.hex to my EBB board)

Edit; – Plotted Great!

RGDS
Ragnar

[ragstian]

Hi

Windell, good point, I’ll try to increase the current and see if that helps. What’s the max steps per second you can achieve?

Would you ever want to plot at those speeds anyway?
When I try to plot at high speeds the pen arm goes ‘haywire’  when hatching
small moves, like there are ‘resonance’ in the arm d.t. inertia. To avoid this I align the hatching in the X-direction so the small moves are done by the egg and not the pen arm.

RGDS
Ragnar

[ragstian]

Hi.

What’s your speed per step setting? I found anything over 700 would lose steps.

RGDS
Ragnar

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