#Makelangelo inkscape gcode pro#
#Makelangelo inkscape gcode software#

#Makelangelo inkscape gcode software#

And further, that I’m turning a blind eye to other critical parts: Even back when it had a kid-recognizable Arduino, there was so much high powered software hacking behind it that the kid wouldn’t have a prayer of making it work by himself. Ĭounterpoint: It’s been pointed out that things that I – as an engineer – see as simple/approachable – like the cheap steppers from American Science and Surplus vs “real” steppers – are invisible to the kids I’m hoping to inspire.

But at least it keeps running better and better. And a final death knell will be replacing the cheap steppers and their often recognized sewing bobbin drums with Nema 17s and probably turned aluminum drums. The original cardboard pen holder has finally given way to the nice aluminum and teflon one.

#Makelangelo inkscape gcode pro#

The Arduino Duemilanove with jumper wires coming out has been replaced by a dedicated Pro Mini on a slick custom PCB with the stepsticks and other parts on-board instead of parts hot-melt glued to the base board. With some real regret, we’ve lost many of those simple parts in a push to make it work better. The junkbox spiritīesides the fun of making it work, part of the motivation was that maybe the appearance of being made from simple, familiar pieces might inspire some kid to say “Hey, I could make something like that!”. The aluminum pen holder, suspended by two strings going over pulleys at the tops of the “ears” down to drums on the steppers, typically holds an inexpensive felt-tip marker and has a pen lift servo that lets it draw disconnected lines. The guts – electronics and the stepper motors and of course lots of LEDs – are all on a long wooden platform across the bottom of the machine. It currently consists of a 4’x4′ drawing area, usually hosting a 40″ tall canvas from a 36″ wide roll of paper mounted on the back. The most recent of its 7 or 8 trips to maker events got a little post on the W88 blog here. While there are still a couple of upgrades being considered, it’s basically stable and works well. The Drawbot, a ‘polargraph’ 2-string plotter inspired as a junkbox project by Bill Paulson at Workshop 88 in April of 2013, has been under on and off development and improvement ever since.