Hi, I’m wondering if I can give a Stepper motor screen coordinates like, move to 430x1020 for example. I’m trying to make a 3d printer (kind of)…
Please help me!
Regards Zersixs.
Only if you have a processor and code to translate the screen coordinates to number of steps need to move the desired distance.
Short answer, no. Read more about steppers here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepper_motor. Especially the Fundamentals of operation section.
Like waltr said, you can have your code map those values to stepper movement. But I really don’t see why you would be doing this as all of this has been done before. What do you mean by “sort of?”
Well I want to record the movement of my mouse in a certain game and then give that to a motor that will then move another pen exactly the same as I did.
So the robot is holding a wacom pen and move it in 2 axis above a wacom exactly as I did on the computer earlier.
If you want to make it follow a certain path, then you could divide the path up in line sections. And use something like the Bresenham line algorithm ([Wiki)to calculate the intermediate ‘pixel’-steps.
I’m trying to make a 3d printer (kind of)…
…
So the robot is holding a wacom pen and move it in 2 axis above a wacom exactly as I did on the computer earlier.
Wow, hold on there! You have to make up you mind if it is like a printer or plotter bed, or if it is like a robot on wheels freely moving a pen around over a piece of paper. Those are 2 entirely different types of motions. The plotter type is usually easier to make reproducable drawings, but demand a limited plotting area because of the paper size. Whereas the free moving robot (flexible in the paths it can plot) has wheelslip and turning errors to deal with. You’ll have a lot of trouble making the path be shaped correctly. Which one is it going to be?](Bresenham's line algorithm - Wikipedia)
An electronic pantograph then. You could look for an old XY plotter, grab it’s internals
http://www.teknetelectronics.com/Pics/WEBHP_7044B.jpg
… and drive that w/a couple of analog signals but where’s the fun and waste in that ? Steppers and a couple of "home switches and some sort of XY gantry can certainly work. Or you could …
That machine on the Youtube video would be great if I could make it follow my mouse (The idea I have in mind is that I record my mouse movement for as long as I want and then give that data to the motors somehow so they move the exact same way)
Though it’s very important the motors follow my mouse EXACTLY, meaning it has to do a curve if I do one and NOT follow my mouse coordinate after coordinate in straight lines.
Though it’s very important the motors follow my mouse EXACTLY, meaning it has to do a curve if I do one and NOT follow my mouse coordinate after coordinate in straight lines.
What? Try again.
How about if they're tiny tiny straight lines ? After all once you digitized the info via your mouse all the PC knows is a bunch of X, Y co-ordinate pairs. It's has no clue as to the path taken from X1, Y1 to X2, Y2.Zersixs:
Though it’s very important the motors follow my mouse EXACTLY, meaning it has to do a curve if I do one and NOT follow my mouse coordinate after coordinate in straight lines.
My goal is to make it look like human movements.
Zersixs:
My goal is to make it look like human movements.
You mean like a robot arm looking like a human arm? Or what do you mean with human movements? With steppers it will always be done with small finite steps.
The pen it is holding should move like a human does, not following coordinates in perfect lines.
Zersixs:
The pen it is holding should move like a human does, not following coordinates in perfect lines.
The curve it gets depends on how small the smallest steps can be. If you want the movement to be curvy instead of like staircases, then you need a high stepper resolution. Or a rotation to linear movement mechanism with a large ‘gear ratio’. Many turns per milimeter or inch of linear motion. An inkjet printer or plotter does it. It can make high resolution curves, depending on how you set the driver settings.
Get yourself an old inkjet printer and look inside and hack it. But it is a bit more complex as it has an optical absolute position ribbon providing feedback on where the print head is along it’s lateral movement.
I think I gonna lay this project to the side for a bit, seem too complex atm…