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A Big Day of Firsts!

2012-08-08 Dan

Today is the first time I import product. UPS called and asked if I had a broker. I said “Yes.”
“Who?”
“Me?”
“Ok. Would you like the shipment number?”
It was that easy? I thought they’d try to talk me out of it or something. Wipes nervous sweat from brow. Now I need to get down to the airport and explain to them the situation. To whit:
I have no idea what I'm doing

Later today I’m also getting the final parts for another drawbot shipment and then I’m building a lightbox so I can start getting product photos into my shop. Zencart is hiddeous but it’s a start.

I’m really starting to grow into the role of businessman. Facilitating opportunities in a way where everybody wins while making money is ridiculously feel-good.

I’ll have another post later today with my experience at the CBSA.

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Colored JTextPane logging for Drawbot, minor updates

2012-08-06 Dan

– changed manual driving buttons. “centered” now says “this is home” and “home” now says “go home”.
– changed log window so text is colored for better readability.
– disabled the paper config and the machine config until the robot is connected.
– fixed a bug where configuration was not being sent to the robot, which screwed up all movements.

I really hope I can get limit switches working soon. Then I can auto-calibrate, which means less configuring for you.

Miscellaneous

Skycam features added to improve Drawbot

2012-08-04 Dan

I’ve replaced the old & busted “load bobbins” with a much more convenient “jog motors”. This way you can test each motor separately. You can even jog it a lot to load your bobbins. It used to be you had to tweak the firmware to load the bobbins or do it by hand. Which was the lesser evil? The question is now moot.

I’ve also added an “invert” checkbox in the jog motor control panel, just in case you decided to do it by hand and got the bobbin loaded backwards. …or maybe you wired the motors in a wierd way and they were running in reverse. Whatever! Both problems are now gone.

Get the master branch from github and run the DrawbotGUI.jar to see the changes. Don’t forget to update your firmware! (You will not lose your GUID.)

I think in the next update I’m going to merge the configuration screens to make setup easier. Something with a picture so it makes more intuitive sense. Can you easily load an image into the background of a dialog box in java? I haven’t even figured out how to make many text inputs the same size.

How would you feel about being able to give your Drawbot a name? “Drawbot #26” sounds so cold.

On the 11th of August I’ll be bringing the Drawbot to the Life Tree fundraiser party in Vancouver where I’ll have some prints ready and I’ll be drawing on-site. I’m also bringing it to the Super Happy Hacker House at the VHS on the 18th of August, and again to the Vancouver New Forms Festival 2012 september 13-16.

I said I’d draw 10 copies of the Burning Man logo in advance and it turns out I’ve only got 9 sheets left. That means between test prints, sales, and personal projects I’ve now drawn 91 giant pictures of steadily improving quality on my Drawbot. That’s over 50km of line!

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Skycam debugging II, first test movements

2012-08-04 Dan

I tested each drawbot separately with the new skycam drivers and – after several hours – found a one letter typo that was messing everything up. Then I decided to re-read the critical sections and found two more. A-ha!

Once each Drawbot was moving correctly in their planes, I reconnected them and began moving in all three dimensions.

I added a way to invert the rotation of a single motor because I wound the string backward and it was easier to flip the code than rewind the bobbin.

Right now it’s convinced that 12:00 is X+ and 3:00 is Y+. Not fatal but not what I expect.

Here is a model for a plotter you can use to safely attach a camera to your Skycam. If anyone buys a skycam in a kit I’ll be sure to send one of these along.

Here is some early video.

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Skycam assembly gallery and robot debugging

2012-08-03 Dan

I sold a record number of Drawbots today. Awesome possum! To celebrate, here’s a little bit more about the Skycam I’m going to be bringing to the Vancouver 2012 New Forms Festival, September 13-16. The Drawbot will also be there.

I assembled the Skycam a few days ago. It’s two Drawbots put together with a bit of modified software on top. I assumed I would set up four steppers around a clock face. Each stepper would be at 1:30, 4:30, 7:30, and 10:30. An X+ movement should be towards 3:00 (Berlin), a +Y towards 12:00, and a +Z towards the ceiling. Sounds do-able, but it’s a whole new world of problem solving.

I knew from the start the steppers would be mounted backwards or something. I wrote some code to “jog” just one motor so I can identify which is which and then switch their positions in software. Each motor gets assigned an XYZ coordinate. When my Java program says “Go to XYZ” the Drawbots can figure out the rest on their own.

I also knew that I had to wait for a movement to complete before starting another or accuracy would suffer. That was challenging, and the first time I wrote Listener pattern in Java. Thank you to everyone in freenode#java for their help!

Re-centering a four-string device is a lot harder than a two-string device. I put the origin in the middle of the floor. I still have to manually turn the bobbins which is my least favorite part.

I broke the strings three times already. Lesson learned: run the Skycam with the emergency stop in my lap. Also, disconnect three of the four strings when I’m done with the robot for the day so people can’t get snagged on it by mistake.

So how’s the actual movement, when everything else is said and done? Well…so far the results I get are really confusing. They have to be seen to be described. Anyone interested in a video? Comment now or forever hold your peace.

For a complete description of the build process, read the descriptions and titles of each picture in the gallery. I make no apologies: I have Burning Man on the brain.

If you’d like to build one of these Skycams, let me know. I can package up all the parts if you can get the 2x4s and the drywall/wood screws.