Walking the Walk
I’ve been going on and on about digital fabrication for quite a while now while my own MakerBot sat unfinished at the corner of my desk. But now it’s working. Thanks in no small part to my friend and CNC Guru who not only got my XY stage parts cut for me, but who visited today and yesterday to help me get my firmware woes taken care of. As it happens I really could not have asked for a better teacher; Revar knows his stuff.
We wrote a processing script that sends gcodes to my RepRap Gen2 electronics, (I’ll post it when I’ve got a nicer interface) got it running, debugged a few remaining mechanical issues (including a few boneheaded moves on my part in the Plastruder MK3) and got our first raft late last night. Due to a gcode malfunction (firmware misinterpreted a “get slightly hotter” code as “turn off the heat” which caused the print to fail after the raft AND strip the filament) we didn’t get the first printed object (see above) until this morning after we’d both got some food and sleep.
I’m stepping back for a bit to ponder the possibilities now that I actually can do a lot of the things I’ve been talking about, and then, well, I think I’m going to make some cool things.
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Demented Chihuahua Said,
June 12, 2009 @ 12:24 pm
Congrats on finally getting it working! Looks like you beat us and will have the first truly functioning RepStrap at DorkbotPDX.
What was the problem with your firmware? Very interested before I have to install it on a Sanguino for some Gen 3 electronics.
Anyway, looks good!
Allan Ecker Said,
June 12, 2009 @ 1:04 pm
Well, remember I’m on the Gen2 hardware, which means I’m actually NOT using the same firmware as you, but I think some things should translate:
I’d advise against using anything further away from the motherboard Sanguino than the Arduino IDE to debug. This way you are strictly sending GCodes of your own design to the firmware and observing if they are heeded.
Once you’ve proven to yourself that all the GCodes do what they’re supposed to, the problem is reduced to making sure the host software is doing what it’s supposed to. To get my MakerBot running, I actually wrote a Processing script that sends GCodes. This is what I’m printing with even now, and I’ll submit it to the repository where the 1.3 firmware for the Gen2 Arduino once I’ve got the bugs worked out and an actual GUI. (Presently it’s entirely keyboard based.)
Edit note: Also keep a hawk’s eye on the gcode itself. I misdiagnosed a gcode misread as an extruder malfunction because the error switched off the heat, froze the plastic, and caused the extruder to stop, and then strip the plastic.