Raster test engraving grid

[Brandon K.]

Well.. starting to wish I knew how to script things inside of Inkscape. lol

Standard style test grid, .250in (6.35mm) squares, 100 layers, from 10% power 500mm/s feed, to 100% power 5000mm/s feed.

Turnkeys plugin is chugging away at it, and has been for several minutes. Anyone want to take bets on how long it take to finish exporting, or a wild guess at the filesize? :D

I'll upload the gcode when its done, as long as its not too large. I left off all of the 100% power, and half of the 80 and 70% powers as there be dragons.

[Brandon K.]

Well, that was short lived. Inkscape gave up the ghost after about 15 minutes. Not really surprised, thats a lot of code to generate. Just the text and numbers was over 53,000 lines, and even that test had issues. The last few lines of each raster block were cut off and missing from the burn, and the PWM 20ma MAX line was done twice. Once at the beginning, and again at the end. Alignments were also borked, but I knew that would happen.

Got me to thinking though.. It looks like in standard gcode you can use ocalls and loops.. it doesn't look like Marlin has that capability though, unless its just not documented. That would make a 100 square test grid fairly straightforward to hand write.That's getting way beyond my scope though, so I think I'll figure out other workarounds.

I've gone ahead and attached the gcode for the grid, but its just the text and numbers (20% power, 4600mm/s feed). I somehow missed selecting the big grid of boxes the first time I tested this, and that was all that came out.

You can see where the bottom of the numbers are trimmed off, as well as the duplicate PWM.  Most of it burned off the side of the board, and it has a noticable shifting to it. At first I was thinking that could be the steppers jumping, but I didn't hear anything abnormal from them. Looking closer, you can see that line has no spacing between letters, and it only shifts after whole letters, and not a gradual lean like you would expect from a stepper jumping.

It could also be repeatability issues with the machine as a whole, but I do not remember if it rehomed inbetween words on the side or not. It did home after each number block, so some hand editing of the code may be required to stop that.

I think I'll try some jpegs next, just to see what happens. :)

[Turnkey]

neat! There was something I was trying to get going to optimise the export of rasters but Inkscape wasn't doing what I wanted. I'll see if I can burn that gcode on my laser now to see what comes out.

[Turnkey]

Right! So I found some bugs that I am fixing up. I'll post up the new version once it's finished on git. I will be away on holidays in another 15 hours for around a week so looking forward to what you guys get going for the documentation in the meantime.

[John Dickinson]

I have wished Marlin supported those higher Gcode functions that LinuxCNC sup[ports since the first day I saw it, sadly it does not.

No loops, breaks, splits. Just your run of the mill "go here and do that on the way"

[Turnkey]

I finished off the y origin setting found in the exporter. The results of changing it can be seen above.

New code on Github in the next few minutes.

[Turnkey]

Alright, the new code is on Github now. Also I fixed up that glitch where it wasn't rastering the full height of the numbers. Also removed the 'go to home' command that was at the bottom of each raster node once exported. Only needs to home once at the start of the job.

Check out this timelapse of a raster I did the other day : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DKSxDIkqoA

[Turnkey]

You guys will like this too, probably handy to add to your consortium of information : http://www.scrollsawvillage.com/gallery/category/2-pattern-library/

These are all categories with many many good quality images to raster.

[Rolf]

That is fantastic! Now if someone could just make it a installation CD so that nincompoops like me could install it in a easy manner, instead of struggling for days. I am sure they will sell like hot cakes and I will gladly pay $25 for the first one.

If it included easy to read (after printout) schematics as well that would be great.

I have found that my little gray cells, that are now 85 years old are having a hard time coping with all the intricacies of the installation.

 

[John Dickinson]

It needs to get finished before things like that are considered, it really is very trivial to make it install from an icon click. Get it perfect first. :)

[Rolf]

It is interesting to hear that making a CD insulation disk is not too difficult. Seems like everything is going to be tied up in the near future so waiting so waiting a little bit longer is not going to be too difficult :-)

 

[Brandon K.]

Rolf, if I remember when I get off work I'll write a step by step on how I got turnkeys plugin to work in inkscape. It's not overly difficult. The plugin isn't ready for production yet, but I'm having a blast finding bugs :)

[John Dickinson]

Step by step is a lot more useful than a CD auto installer because it will not change as the software does.

Could always script it to get from the net I suppose but even that can break as URLs change.

[Rolf]

Brendan K., I appreciate that very much but I think I have pretty good instructions it is just that I have problems following them and that is something nobody can do anything about :-(       Besides is going to take me some time to install the hardware rewire all the steppers etc.

[John Dickinson]

What's needed is more pictures of the way people wired up their steppers and where they cut holes for the USB and SD cards. I wish I hadn't cut for the SD card now as I bought a Flashair so no longer needed access to it.

[Brandon K.]

John, I ran extensions for my USB, and plan to do the same for the SD card once I mount the LCD.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002M8VBIS/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
That is the USB extension that I bought. I used a couple of screws and washers to mount it to the side of the case where the original opening was.

I've not decided on which SD card extension I want to use. I've not read any good reviews from any of them yet.

As for the steppers, I *hate* flat cables. You can see in the pictures that I removed the FRC connector from my optical endstops to get +5v(red), Gnd(black), and the two signal wires(yellow and green) out. I cut the extra several feet of wire off of my Y axis motor and used it to lengthen the X axis motors connection. That way, I have JST connectors for both motors.

To find your two pairs of coils, jumper two of the four wires and see if the motor gets harder to turn by hand (or gently pushing the gantry around). The difference will be very obvious. If it does, that is one pair, and the other two would logically be the next pair. Call those pair A and pair B. On the RAMPS side of things you'll want to have pairs of wires next to eachother in the plug (A A B B). If the motor turns the wrong direction, turn the plug around on the board or compensate in the firmware. I'd suggest just turning the plug around. Be mindful that once you plug the stepper motors into the RAMPS board, moving the gantry by hand will create some voltage that will feed back. The faster you turn the motor, the more voltage is created. I can light the power LED on my power supply pushing my gantry around by hand. This is backfeeding the system, and I can't imagine its any good on things.

As for the endstops, I made a quick and dirty board with screw terminals to stack on top of RAMPS. I did the same thing for the two laser control wires. You'll want to make sure that your 5v goes in through the I2C block on RAMPS (or the endstop connections, since the I2C and endstops are all bussed together). If you try to power it from the SERVO block (where the laser control pins go) it will not work, and the laser will start lasing as soon as the power supply is turned on.

If you have any questions on any of this, or want more pictures, feel free to ask. I've been taking lots of pictures along the way.

[Brandon K.]

It also looks like Turnkey updated his documentation on github for his plugin.
https://github.com/TurnkeyTyranny/laser-gcode-exporter-inkscape-plugin

That's a lot better than it was last week. If you've not seen it in a few days you may want to take a look again.

[John Dickinson]

SD extension is not so easy. Yes you can buy an "extension lead" but there is no card detect on the normal connections so removing and inserting the card is not detected by Marlin as it never activates the switch. The way round this is to use a wired extension and they do not like being more than a few inches long. Without doubt the best way is to use a Flashair and leave the SD inside the machine.

[Brandon K.]

I just looked up what that was.. Wow! That's a pretty nifty little card. Do you have to connect to its own AP every time you want to upload a file, or does it act like a tiny NAS?

[Rolf]

 

 

John Dickinson

12:08 PM (5 hours ago)

Other recipients:

Step by step is a lot more useful than a CD auto installer because it will not change as the software does. Could always script it to get from the net I suppose but even that can break as URLs change.

Step by step is a lot more useful than a CD auto installer because it will not change as the software does.

Could always script it to get from the net I suppose but even that can break as URLs change.

 

John, I am sure you are correct but all of us don't have the skills needed, personally I feel that when installation instructions calls for operations under the Command Prompt things are getting over the heads of a lot of people.

So in order to suit both camps I suggest we have it both ways and we all can be happy :-)

 

 

[John Dickinson]

This is my rewire of the X motor and the limit switches. It is just stuck in with sticky pads with enough length to reach full Y travel.

[John Dickinson]

It just stays connected to your wifi as a client and uses a web interface with drag and drop from your PC, Marlin is not good at refreshing it though, can be a bit of a faf, you ahve to go up and down a few directories to force it to reread..

Long thread about it on Google Groups Wanhao:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/wanhao-printer-3d/zA6-XNHW2LQ

I just worked out how to make it static IP in the config file without bothering the router.

A guy on ebay uk had a load for sale at £8 which is very cheap. They are class 6 but that doesn't seem to be a problem for either my laser cutter or my 3d printer.

[Rado Racek]

Hi,

I tried your Inkscape plugin. Cutting export works but raster does not work. It show this message:

Built gcode for group text5153, item path5158 - will be cut as vector.

Built gcode for group text5153, item path5160 - will be cut as vector.

Built gcode for group text5153, item path5162 - will be cut as vector.

Built gcode for group text5153, item path5164 - will be cut as vector.

Built gcode for group text5153, item path5166 - will be cut as vector.

Built gcode for group text5153, item path5168 - will be cut as vector.

Built gcode for group text5153, item path5170 - will be cut as vector.

Built gcode for group text5153, item path5172 - will be cut as vector.

Built gcode for group text5153, item path5174 - will be cut as vector.

Built gcode for group text5153, item path5176 - will be cut as vector.

Traceback (most recent call last):

  File "turnkeylaser.py", line 1400, in <module>

    e.affect()

  File "C:\Program Files (x86)\Inkscape\share\extensions\inkex.py", line 268, in affect

    self.effect()

  File "turnkeylaser.py", line 1371, in effect

    data = self.effect_curve(selected)

  File "turnkeylaser.py", line 1160, in effect_curve

    for objectData in compile_paths(self, node, trans):

  File "turnkeylaser.py", line 982, in compile_paths

    im = Image.open(filename).convert('L')

  File "C:\Program Files (x86)\Inkscape\python\lib\site-packages\PIL\Image.py", line 653, in convert

    self.load()

  File "C:\Program Files (x86)\Inkscape\python\lib\site-packages\PIL\ImageFile.py", line 155, in load

    self.load_prepare()

  File "C:\Program Files (x86)\Inkscape\python\lib\site-packages\PIL\PngImagePlugin.py", line 339, in load_prepare

    ImageFile.ImageFile.load_prepare(self)

  File "C:\Program Files (x86)\Inkscape\python\lib\site-packages\PIL\ImageFile.py", line 223, in load_prepare

    self.im = Image.core.new(self.mode, self.size)

  File "C:\Program Files (x86)\Inkscape\python\lib\site-packages\PIL\Image.py", line 36, in __getattr__

    raise ImportError("The _imaging C module is not installed")

ImportError: The _imaging C module is not installed

I tried your precompiled python and I installed python too but it does not work

[Turnkey]

Hi Rado,

That's an issue with your Python install. It's still using the version that comes with Inkscape.

Try renaming the python folder in the folder you installed inkscape in to something other than python, like 'python-old' after installing python 2.7 (Win32 version).

I just formatted and reinstalled windows and took some screenshots on the way of how I reinstalled the plugin with native python. See below :)

[Hamid s k]

@Turnkey I use the inkscape .92 with update python lib, but what every I tried it just create the vector gcode and not raster( no G7 included) what did I wrong ? what setting should I use in inkscape bitmap trace setting ?