[Dan]

I’m looking at the thingiverse link and I can see the shoulder limit switch mount.
From where are you downloading?

I could not see the tendon.dxf, so I uploaded it again.
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:280263

[Dan]

Can you show a picture? Is your pulley diameter ~1.27 cm?

[Dan]

It’s reading in DXF files and tracing the lines in the files directly into gcode lines. If the order of the lines seems a little wonky, it’s because the DXF file stores lines first by type (line, spline) and then by starting point ascending y axis. eg, the first line has a start at the bottom of the picture and the second line is the one that starts closests to the bottom. DXF files don’t care about continuity (one line starts where another ends) or bounding region (start point might be higher up the image than where the line travels). I’ve long wanted some kind of optimizer to find and remove these silly issues. spatial reconstruction is not a trivial task and the time it takes grows exponentially larger.

[Dan]

Each program is customized to a slightly different application.

Makelangelo has a few opening lines that tell the machine it’s settings (M101, D01). The settings used to be stored in the machine itself, and were later removed for reasons…. that I don’t remember at this moment. BTW, if you’re using our 20-tooth pulleys then update your pulley size settings because it should be D1 L1.27323 R1.27323

Pycam has many lines with no G command at the start. They are using a feature I only just learned about, which is to use the last-seen g command. Pycam is also expecting a rotating cutting tool (M3).

Makelangelo silently ignores commands it does not recognize. Most of Pycam would fail on Makelangelo.

A few people have requested a command-line only interface. It’s a big project to refactor things into a Model-View-Controller code design pattern, after which I can replace the View with a command line only View. Once it works it would be pretty trivial to run a Makelangelo off a Pi Zero or an ESP8266, which would be nice.

[Dan]

How big is the paper on which you are converting?

How big is the pen tip?

These are the two major factors.

[Dan]

Generate your image.
Save your gcode to the sd card.
Insert the sd card into the LCD controller.
Home your machine.
Click the LCD controller dial and scroll down to “This is home.” Click again.
Click the LCD controller dial and scroll down to “Start from file…” Click again.
Scroll down to your file and click one last time.
Drawing should begin immediately. There will be no “please insert a pen” warning.

[Dan]

Two different versions of the firmware and two different versions of the software mean they’re probably not the cause.

Crash happens when the servo moves, which draws a lot of power from the board.

avrdude shouldn’t give you grief unless there’s something wrong with the Arduino or the USB cable.

Sounds to me like you have a power supply problem.

[Dan]

> We did see though that the file is made to report no checksum from the board.

Sorry, I don’t understand this sentence.

[Dan]

The news is that yes, there is something funny with 2.5.2’s latest firmware.

I’m sorry it’s taken so long to get to this. I’m looking into it more right now.

[Dan]

I have a 2.5.2 assembled for sale in the kanban system. I will test it now and try to reproduce your results.

[Dan]

Sounds like you’re already in administrator mode.

[Dan]

That is fascinating and bizarre.

When Java sends a message like

N0 M101 T29.845 B-29.845 L-19.208750000000002 R19.208750000000002 I1 J-1

to the robot, it also adds a ; and then a checksum on the end. I don’t print the checksum to the log because it’s usually an unprintable character that might have unintended effect.

NO CHECKSUM 0 is saying “I never got the checksum”.

But in administrator mode it gets the checksum. Why would the mode change the end of every message? Does not compute.

[Dan]

Hi Joe,

Thank you!! I want to hear from more people like you that are interested in an arm.

I’m waaay tooo exciiited about building robot arms! I released that model before it was truly ready and learned my lesson very quickly. Learn something new every day, right?

I’m really interested in building a better model and shipping it fully assembled. One challenge I have is proving that there are enough people like you that are looking for an arm. If I can prove it, I can get investors to help me finish the next model, or run a kickstarter.

A related challenge is that when I’m designing an arm I’m guessing at what you want the arm to do… which is stupid. I can just interview interested people and get a picture from their answers. I wouldn’t want to miss something obvious that would turn you off.

So

I have five questions to everyone interested in an arm. Please, answer as many as you want:

1. For what purpose do you want to use an arm?
2. What’s the minimum lifting power would you need?
3. What’s the minimum reach would you need?
4. What other features are you looking for?
5. What’s price would you expect for an arm that could do all that?

[Dan]

I emailed you an answer the day it was originally posted.

GT2-6 is 6mm wide and has teeth with a 2mm pitch.

[Dan]

This is my fault. Two days ago I saw a pack of belt sitting on my otherwise empty desk. I knew I had left it out of a kit but I didn’t know which one. Thank you for teaching out to us!

I will Fedex you the belt tomorrow. I’m sorry for the mix up.

[Dan]

Hi! We’ll get you sorted out right away.

[Dan]

In onestep() you may find a delayMicroseconds(1500) is enough. CNCShield was contributed by a fan.

Where you see

a[j].over -= maxsteps;

digitalWrite(motors[j].step_pin,HIGH);
digitalWrite(motors[j].step_pin,LOW);

You might be able to get away with

digitalWrite(motors[j].step_pin,HIGH);
a[j].over -= maxsteps;
digitalWrite(motors[j].step_pin,LOW);

instead of a delay.

[Dan]

On what computer does it work, and on what computer does it not? What is the difference?
Do they both have the same version of java? Should be 1.8

[Dan]

v7.3 had this endless loop problem. It was fixed in the next release.

v7.4 has a new safety rule: you must click “set home” before you can start a drawing.

[Dan]

I just added an “is landscape” checkbox to the paper settings, it should give you what you want.
Will be in the next release. Great idea!

[Dan]

The closest we have is gcodesender, which JUST sends gcode. it is not command-line friendly.

[Dan]

https://github.com/marginallyclever/makelangelo-firmware

Latest version is 1.0.3. I just finished building another 2.5.2, I’m going to check on the one-stepper issue today.

[Dan]

Hi Jan,

Are you using the latest version (7.4.5)? v7.3.4 was the first release of the force-home feature and it is known to have a bug.

We assemble and test all our robots before shipping. That way we know they and the software will work. I don’t see any record of your purchase in our web store so I have to assume you’re running a home made model. I can only guess that you have (from best case to worst case)

1. a loose wire on that stepper motor
2. a wonky power supply
3. a bad motor shield
4. a bad arduino
5. some or all of the above, simultaneously

Please: How could I make “figuring out why stuff doesn’t work” better?

[Dan]

Ugi – please confirm you are running v7.4.5. the 7.3.4 is known to have that bug.

[Dan]

The latest is 7.4.5, released last friday. https://github.com/MarginallyClever/Makelangelo/releases/tag/7.4.5
Please update and tell me if the problem persists.

[Author]

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