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No, that’s the one. I’m afraid that the set of people who want to share EggBot artwork and wish to do so on facebook may not be large enough for a whole lot of groups.
I’m not sure which screws you are referring to. Is there any chance you mean the two screws that hold the vertical rail clamp (the silver-colored aluminum piece with the two narrow-diameter vertical shafts) to the Y Tie Block (the black-colored aluminum piece that has the two Y shafts, and a ball bearing beneath it)?
There is not any intentional delay there, and there is no option to lift before the move finishes.
If you are using the standard (Inkscape-based) software and using standard (or close to standard) settings, then what you are likely seeing is a combination of two effects. These are the slowing down of movement as it approaches the end of a path, and the physical time needed to lift the pen.You might try, under the Options tab, selecting the option to move at a constant speed when the pen is down. This will make it so that the movement does not slow down as it approaches the end of a line. Slowing down takes time, and can lead to pooling of ink there. You can’t go quite as fast with this mode, but it may help with the issue that you’re having.The second effect is the physical time needed to lift the pen. You can make the servo raise faster by adjusting the Pen Raising Speed in the Timing tab. You can enter a value as high as 500 there, to make the servo move as fast as possible. However, even more important than this is that you pick an appropriate set of pen-up and pen-down positions in the Setup tab. Ideally, when you are in the pen-down position, there should be only a very small gap (1-2 mm) between the servo “horn” that performs the lifting and the metal surface that it lifts. If you have a larger gap than this, you will notice a delay as the servo motor has much further to travel before it actually starts lifting the pen.I’m not very active on facebook, but I understand that there is at least one other eggbot-oriented egg art group there. :)
That is a cool trick– and not one that I’ve seen before!
Yes indeed! A “dried” sharpie is one of those classic tools that Bruce Shapiro, who invented the EggBot, has often talked about as a helpful piece of equipment for getting things set up and aligned. Thanks for bringing this up again. :)
I can suggest two options.
First, Extensions > Arrange > Restack can be used to re-order your vectors in (for example) a top-to-bottom order, which can help somewhat.Second, there is an extension included as part of the EggBot project that can re-order vectors to minimize pen-up time. We’ve been thinking about adding it for AxiDraw as well ( https://github.com/evil-mad/axidraw/issues/4 ).In the mean time, you can install the EggBot software for Inkscape (see http://wiki.evilmadscientist.com/Installing_software ), which will give you that extension.Awesome! I agree that I don’t see much neon influence here, but I’m definitely happy to have it added to the set. And, I see that you’ve got the updated version of Readability in there, too. :) I’ll push it to the repository shortly.
A low power microcontroller — possibly a 6 or 8 pin PIC or AVR is probably your best choice for this, if you only need one input and one output.
That said, “simplest” is relative. The circuit is very simple (a chip, the LED, the battery, and the sensor– possibly with a resistor added), but the microcontroller would require programming, and you would need a programming adapter that can connect to it. (This can be as simple as extra blank locations in the circuit board, designed to mate (temporarily) to a programming adapter.)There are other ways to do things like this as well– for example a “one-shot” (monostable multivibrator) circuit based on a low-voltage 555, such as the LMC555. No programming required, but you’ll need additional analog components to configure it, you’ll have less output headroom to drive the LED, and you’ll potentially spend more power when the LED is off.Lowering the curve smoothing value, as you have done, will cause smooth curves to appear as sets of straight segments. Choose a value of 10 or higher. Also, make sure that your resolution is set to “Super”, and possibly try reducing the cornering speed factor– it causes the machine to “whip” around corners, leading to less smooth curves.
I’ve already corrected it in both the regular and italic versions. No worries; just wondering if you had any clever tricks for spotting these. Food for thought!
I noticed that EMS Readability has duplicate data in the capital “E”, making it print twice. Do you have any straightforward means of detecting duplicate paths like this? I only happened to notice while doing some plots!
Which type of programmer are you using, and which firmware are you using? (That is, if using Arduino-style bootloader firmware, is it one based on the v1 or v2 firmware?)
Interesting. My best guess at this point is that your power supply has failed (is not supplying enough current– likely dropping the voltage under load). If so, that would explain all three of the symptoms: the motors not getting warm nor having enough power, and the servo not working correctly. Please contact us directly, and we can get you a new power supply to try.
If they are _cold_, then that suggests that the servo motor power is well below what is needed in order to function properly. I’d suggest turning that up until the motors start to engage.
