Tag: makelangelo

Makelangelo Opinion

Should I make a Makelangelo 6?

2026-04-24 Dan

Due to circumstances beyond my control Makelangelo 5 parts will soon no longer be available to me. I’m debating if I should invest in a Makelangelo 6 design or not. What are your thoughts?

The RUMBA control board used for many years is no longer available from any of my suppliers. I have found a few on Aliexpress at a grossly inflated price. Since they’re no longer reliable I’ve found a possible replacement, the SKR MINI E3. For the same price as the old RUMBA I can get a full color TFT screen, better drivers, and use less parts in the final design.

This is a great opportunity to update the pen holder. Imagine removing the hobby servo and using the same stepper motor as the top corners. Reducing my unique part count is a Good Thing. The added weight of the motor means I may be able to remove the two M16 bolts, further lowering my total part count. Fine grain control of the pen lifting speed would make for better line endings, less bouncing off the wall, and shorter drawing time overall.

But what about this economy? Is it even worth doing in a new Great Depression? It’s fun to make the robot as a hobby but also distracting enough that I can’t really start on anything new. There’s only so much time in every day. I would love to give the whole business to one of my nephews but I don’t trust that they care enough to do it right.

Share your positive adult thoughts in the Discord.

Art In the News Makelangelo

Friday Facts 18: New Makelangelo generators

2023-09-22 Dan

The Makelangelo plotters software is always getting improvements and today I’d like to share some of the latest with you. As of today the last official release of Makelangelo Software is 7.37. But did you know that exciting work is always going on in the discussion group? Hot new stuff is being added all the time. We’re up to version 7.44. Here’s a list of changes.

  • Firmware can now be updated from every platform
  • Added image intensity to height converter
  • Added Quadtree-like instant filter
  • Added Circular mazes
  • Added Honeycomb mazes
  • Added more Truchet Tiles
  • Misc other fixes

Firmware can now be updated from every platform

OSX proved to be quite challenging. But it was worth it if it makes everyone’s life easier going forward. Firmware changes are rare and now they are that much less painful. So now when the code in the brain of the robot is changed you won’t have to jump through a lot of hoops. Instead you can use File > Update firmware and follow the prompts.

Added image intensity to height converter

The change in height of each line is affected by the intensity of the underlying image. Line spacing and line offset are adjustable from the menus.

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Added Quadtree-like instant filter

Contributed by itsMohammedThaier. Starting from the whole picture, divide the rectangle in 4 quadrants. if the chnage in color over a quadrant is too much, split this quadrant and repeat.

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Added Circular mazes

What’s not to love? Being randomly generated from a depth-first search, I’m pretty sure there are sometimes two ways to solve each maze.

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Added Honeycomb mazes

Would you believe all well-formed mazes are generated the same? The difference is in how the walls are drawn.

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Added more Truchet Tiles

Orthogonal, Diagonal, and Curved. You can mix and match them together!

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And more!

  • Better drawing of counterweights and belts
  • Added timestamps to Marlin conversation
  • Added more unit tests for unused translations and missing translations
  • Internally merged shared code for Vornoi diagrams
  • Internally merged shared code for Truchet tiles
  • Internally merged shared code for Mazes

Final thoughts

So if any of that seems interesting to you, check it out in the nightly builds.

Thank you to everyone who donated to support the software development. Your donations keep me in beer, and beer keeps me at Ballmer peak.

Discuss this and anything else plotter related on our Discord.

News

Friday Facts 8: Plotting large sewing patterns

2021-11-12 Dan

Here’s a use for Makelangelo plotters that I never considered, offered up by Discord member Jolo: Sewing patterns for home sewing, cosplay and costume design!

It turns out that there’s many free pattern sites. Here’s just one example of a hoodie.

I used Freesewing.org to get a pattern for a hoodie and then chose export pattern > SVG and saved to my desktop.

In Inkscape I opened the file, set the document size to A2 and used that as a guide to split up the file into sections that fit on the paper for the Makelangelo. Just to be cautious I used Object > Ungroup and Path > Object to Path to prevent any import questions. These might not be necessary, but I do them with my laser cutter and it’s a habit now.

I had to delete everything except the part on the paper for each export. Then I used Save As > DXF R14. Makelangelo also understands SVGs – another habit from my laser cutting work. (this post was not paid for by Big Laser – Ed)

Then I loaded it into Makelangelo software and drew it just like any other drawing.

Final thoughts

The HUGE extension for Makelangelo draws up to A0 (841 x 1188 mm aka 33-1/8 x 46-13/16 in)

Do you have other great uses for a large plotter? Share with us and we’ll share it with the world!

You might also get a kick out of open source, parametric pattern design app called Seamly.

Makelangelo News

Friday Facts 6: Makelangelo software 7.28.2

2021-10-22 Dan

Today I’m pleased to announce the stable release of Makelangelo software 7.28.2. I’d like to thank everyone in the community for your support, especially the Discord users working to find and report bugs.

Lookin’ good, good lookin’!

Goodbye, Makelangelo Firmware

The big news is that Marginally Clever is no longer maintaining Makelangelo-firmware. It was too much esoteric work taking up all my time. Instead I teamed up with the good people that make Marlin 3D printer firmware. Together we’ve added polargraph robot support. Check out FF4 if you want the open source code or to make your custom machine tweaks.

New plotter controls separate making art from driving robot.

Get Makelangelo Software

The newest makelangelo software is available in our store, by donation. You can also get releases from our open source github repository.

In order to make it run you will need to install Java JDK 17 or later.

Use Makelangelo Software

Video time!

video late because editor is AFK. one more pandemic shortage!

Contribute

We’d love more people translating the app and sharing ideas about how to make it better. Join us on Discord or submit a ticket to github today.

News

Friday Facts 5: How (and why) be a Makelangelo Tester

2021-10-15 Dan

To describe the mood here this week in a word it would be “challenged”. My productivity is greatly affected by the all-grey of Vancouver winters – I can’t work if I’m not happy and it takes a lot more time to find my happy place each day in the winter.

How (and why) be a Makelangelo Tester

Not too long ago, with the help of the Marlin 3D printer firmware team, I managed to switch to Marlin. This was a huge time savings for me as I can now focus on making the software better. To make it great – for me, for you, for everyone – as fast as possible I need to shorten the cycle time – the time it takes to check a new feature works right.

Maybe you’ve noticed the app is missing something you need. Maybe you found a bug. Now for a lot of programs out there the way to tell them about a bug is not obvious, hard to achieve, and the turnaround time is … who knows.

I want to make a great app and put new issues to bed quick-fast. To me, the report-fix-test loop should be as short and fast as can be. I hope you agree! That is why I’m asking you to help me help you. Become a tester: to shorten the loop.

Report

With our without being a tester, the process starts by going to the Makelangelo code project and filing a good bug report. The bug report comes with a template to fill out that should make writing your report painless.

Fix

Then I or some other brave soul will (maybe) ask follow up question and (definitely) work to make the thing happen. Some are easier than others in surprising ways.

Test

Now this is the sticky part of the loop. When I write code I bang away in the magic language of the drow elves, cursed to roam the underdark. When the machine says I have atoned enough, it produces a jar file. This is then packaged with other essentials like the README file and somehow delivered to you to give it a little run-see, a little double sanity check, a thumbs up or down.

The packaging and delivery process is slow. So slow. In a more perfect world you should be able to say “get me the latest update from Dan!” and moments later be able to run it. Two clicks, right? Well friends, read on.

Thank you

Making it easy to make you happy is … it’s the greatest gift. A win/win. Thank you. It’s very easy to get lost in the weeds with code, and your input gives me clear focus and direction.

Special shout out to CaptFuture, Headly, and OopsHeIsDead for being awesome contributors this week.

Final thoughts

Here’s a gallery of recent Makelangelo Software updates to the app. Many of these changes were brought about by you and yours. I’ll continue to write, you continue to stay awesome. Until next week, be well!