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The Sanguino software obviously hasn’t been updated in some time – I’ll take a look and follow up here.
The first “wall”, the FTDI cable, should be a surmountable problem. You might need to install the FTDI driver, and seeing if the cable enumerates under /dev.
No worries; if you get stuck anywhere else, please don’t hesitate to ask for help.
It sounds like you’re asking about Alpha Clock Five.
The usage guide is here: https://cdn.evilmadscientist.com/KitInstrux/alphaclock/alphaclock_UIG_v2.pdf
In short, hold down the button labeled “SET TIME”, and then use the +/- buttons to change the hour and minute displayed.
I’m sorry to hear that — it looks like you’ve followed up separately about a replacement.
If pen up and pen down are the same level, toggling between them will show no movement.
It sounds like you have multiple unrelated issues going on here– from USB cables to difficulty installing Inkscape. I would highly recommend that you try to solve one at a time. This can get frustrating quickly otherwise.
If you are getting messages that say “failed to connect to axidraw”, then something is wrong. That could be a USB cable, trying to connect to the AxiDraw too soon after starting up the Raspberry Pi (I suggest to give it a solid 15 second waiting period after booting for it to recognize USB devices), or something entirely different. If you aren’t sure whether an issue is due to the RPi or the AxiDraw, you might try connecting to your computer instead.
There are any number of different commands that can test whether the servo is moving — these include (yes) toggle, but you can also use the manual lift and lower commands, direct commands from the interactive python API, direct EBB commands, the setup tab in Inkscape, and plotting files.
If the servo motor is not raising and lowering but X and Y motion are working correctly, then the servo could be dead, but that can also result from having the pen-up and pen-down heights set the same or having the servo motor disconnected.
I’m not sure what the toggle issue has to do with installing Inkscape.
I have not had difficultly installing Inkscape on Raspberry Pi, but I definitely recommend against doing it– it’s a small computer with relatively few resources (speed and memory). If there is any way to do what you need to on the R Pi _without_ using Inkscape, I highly recommend that you do so.
No worries; don’t hesitate to ask if something doesn’t work as expected. Sometimes it’s a bug that we don’t know about. :)
Separately:
Axidraw -M pen_upis not a valid command for the AxiDraw CLI.I *think* that what you are looking for is:
axicli -m manual -M raise_pen, which will raise the pen and does not require an input file name.If you use
axicli -M raise_pen(oraxicli -M pen_up), it will require a document, and plot that document, rather than raising pen. The-Mspecifies which manual_cmd to run, but since you have not specified any mode other than the default mode (plot), the AxiDraw will run inplotmode and ignore the value of the -M switch.The “Toggle” command is provided specifically for this purpose. It toggles the pen between up and down, and does not require a file name. This is the equivalent of the toggle option in the Setup tab of AxiDraw Control within Inkscape.
The CLI and Inkscape use independent sets of parameters. If you’re using the same version (2.5.x) in each, then the values are set the same way, but you would need to set them.
If it might be paper/machine flatness, I would suggest that you test your pen up/pen down positions in the four corners of the plot area as well as the center (for example, on top of a thin piece of plastic or paper that will not bleed through) to ensure that you have the required range.
I see an update after I finished testing the code. ;)
In any case, I hope that your fix is the easier one. Sometimes adding a little *more* Z range, or shimming the paper or AxiDraw feet is the right answer.
If the squiggles touch end to end such that there are not supposed to be any pen lifts, then yes, the timeout could be a factor.
Here is how to edit the timeout setting. Download a fresh copy of the CLI API, and open pyaxidraw/axidraw.py in a text editor. (You can do this right on the Pi if you like.)
Find the line that says
def queryEBBVoltageOn the line before that, add the following line:
ebb_serial.command(self.serial_port, 'SR,0,1\r')Take care that the indentation should match the line above it.
This will disable the servo power timeout. You can also set it back to short,
ebb_serial.command(self.serial_port, 'SR,60000,1\r')will set it to one minute, orebb_serial.command(self.serial_port, 'SR,43200000,1\r')should set the timeout to 43,200,000 ms, or 12 hours.After making the change to that file, use
pip install .as usual to install the software. You do not need to remove prior versions before installing the new one on top of it.Well, please keep me posted if you learn anything new. I would definitely like to get to the bottom of this.
I am not aware of any process by which the servo can become unresponsive as a result of the program that you are running. If XY are responsive, then the Z should be responsive as well.
Here are a few things to consider:
* If the motor still moves but the the vertical slide is sticky, that can sometimes result in the pen not falling when it is supposed to. (It cannot explain the pen raising on its own, though.) Make sure that you’re not overtightening the thumbscrew, and check that the vertical slide falls freely.
* If the servo were to lose its physical connection to the control board, it could easily result in this behavior. Carefully check that the servo connector cable on the left side of the base is fully and securely in place. If you have swapped out a servo on your own, check also that the connection of the servo to its extension cable is secure and that the connection point is held securely in place with the cable ties. You might also try wiggling the cable in different places to see if something seems loose or intermittent.
* If you are plotting something with thousands of very short paths, that can be stressful on the pen-lift servo. One of the failure modes of servo motors is that they can become unresponsive when overheated. If you see this kind of thing again, feel the servo motor, to see if it’s overheating. If you do have plots like this, you can help to reduce the stress on the motor (and increase the speed of your plot) by reducing the total pen-up/pen-down travel distance to only as much as is needed.
* If you are plotting something with no pen-lift movement, but instead very long periods of constant pen-height movement (which sounds like it may be the case), one possible concern is that in recent versions of the EBB, the firmware turns off power to the servo after some period of inactivity. These recent versions are distinguished by having a “micro-B” usb connector rather than a “mini-B” usb connector. This normally happens invisibly, without effect. I have not observed nor heard of any cases where the servo raised position as it was powered down, but that is not outside the realm of possibility. If your EBB firmware is v 2.6.0-2.6.2, then the default timeout is 15 minutes. Any Z movement command would reset the timer, and power would not be restored until another Z command was issued. So, if you are doing individual pen-down paths much longer than 15 minutes, please say so, and I can help you modify the software to alter this timeout.
Is this an issue with the pen motor not functioning, or something else?
