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Author Topic: DRBO hello world? controller simple box?
etaifour
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Posts: 5
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Post DRBO hello world? controller simple box?
on: November 5, 2012, 14:42
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Hi all,

I'm a fresh noob. I've purchased a DRBO kit from Stuart Child to give this a try, and I am positive that I have installed the nuts and bolts correctly. I've uploaded the code to the Arduino, and can see it replying back that all is well on my serial port.

I really want to give polargraphcontroller a go. I want it to draw a box for me, or anything as simple as it could be. I don't understand the concepts of machine size, page size, home point, etc... so i m drastically failing to make it do anything useful so far.

Any pointers would be super appreicated.
cheers,
eyas
sandy
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Posts: 1317
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sandy
Post Re: DRBO hello world? controller simple box?
on: November 5, 2012, 15:28
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Hello, welcome 🙂 Stuart might correct me, but I think your best bet is to read through the instructable (http://www.instructables.com/id/Polargraph-Drawing-Machine/) and see if that clears anything up.

The machine size will be written on the machine itself, on the arduino enclosure, so you don't need to measure it. Steps per rev for you will be 200 - also written on the enclosure as far as I remember, along with the mm per rev value.

Once you've defined your machine size, uploaded it to the machine and homed your gondola, then you can drag a selection box somewhere on the controller and hit "draw outline of box" and it will quickly draw the outline you dragged. (you will need to load an image, png or jpg before you'll be allowed to drag a selection - that's just a bug.)

Let us know how you get on!
good luck
sandy
etaifour
Newbie
Posts: 5
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Post Re: DRBO hello world? controller simple box?
on: November 6, 2012, 20:09
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Awesome!
Yes - it was my bad - I didn't read through the instructable (which proved very valuable). I also missed the machine specific settings written on the Arduino box.
I am now playing around with "Mona Lisa", and trying to understand the different rendering effects. so far, a grid of 20 does not seem to achieve enough details, but i might be incorrectly setting the pen width - i m not sure.

The application runs at 100% CPU on my mac, which makes me a little annoyed. Otherwise, this project has been so far nothing but rewarding 🙂
Thanks!
sandy
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Posts: 1317
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sandy
Post Re: DRBO hello world? controller simple box?
on: November 8, 2012, 14:25
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It is possible to go too small with the grid - you lose depth in each pixel because they aren't big enough to express any variety. It's either fully filled in or it's completely empty - there's no room for an inbetween. That's really a limitation of the pen tip size.

sorry about the 100% cpu!
sn
sc_r
Newbie
Posts: 2
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Post Re: DRBO hello world? controller simple box?
on: November 8, 2012, 17:17
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etaifour - glad you're now getting results! It is well worth giving larger drawings a go - once you've got your DRBO kit working. This will help in getting good results when rendering more complex drawings.

It does take some time to get used to setting up the machine, getting the software settings correct and getting decent results. I certainly got through a lot of paper and a fair few pens before I started being happy with the output I was getting - but I still make mistakes too!

Patience is certainly a virtue worth having 😉

s
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