Plotter using GH + Firefly

Hi,

We started working in a plotter by controlling two stepper motors using GH, Firefly and an arduino board.

Is there any way to know when a stepper motor has reached it's final position (has finished drawing a line), so a new position can be feeded (start drawing the next line). In other words, is there any way to receive feedback from the steppers?

My first attempt has been feeding new lines assuming that the time needed is proportional to the length of the lines. Given that steppers accelerate and decelerate this is far from being acceptable and I would like to find a smarter way.

Thanks for your help.

Ingenerum

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Andy Payne on April 5, 2013 at 11:39am

Hi Ingenerum... I've been working on this exact problem over the last few weeks (when I have time). The good news, is that I think I have a solution. I basically had to re-work the entire stepper firmata... as well as update the Stepper component for Firefly. It works well now, but there are a few extra things I wanted to try to implement first. Is this something you need right away?

-Andy

Permalink Reply by Ingenerum on April 5, 2013 at 1:15pm

Hi Andy, how good you are working on it. It is not urgent nevertheless I'd like to check the new stepper component for Firefly as soon as it is finished.

Also if you want us to test anything on our setup we are available for that. Here a picture of the electronics.