forget color wrote: > Hi, > > I'm in the process of building my first CNC using the 'jgro' design on > cnczone. While I'll use it for normal CNC router stuff, I also intend > to use it as the base for a robotic art painting machine. This is > what led me to emc2, so that I can modify it as needed for my > application. > > I've got a couple questions to help me move forward. > > First, I need to select a drive/motor system. I had been looking at > the HobbyCNC kit, but noticed in the archives and on the wiki that it > looks like some people have had issues with it. Is this still the > case? Otherwise, I'm thinking about the Xylotex kit. From what I can > tell that seems to work well for others. Should I be looking at any > other setup? I'd like to keep costs down, but can spend more if it > makes a difference. >
You need to do some math to find out what size motors you need to move the mechanism. Based on that you select drivers, PSU, etc. > Second, down the road I'll need a system for picking up different > brushes. I'm figuring I can write some code to generate g-code that > makes all the movements I need, such as moving to where a brush gets > dropped off, where another gets picked up, where it needs to get > paint, etc. But I don't yet have any sense of the mechanism for > grabbing the brush. I want something simple and inexpensive. Any > suggestions? Also, when I get a drive/motor kit, should I get a > 4-axis kit and use the 4th axis and 4th stepper for controlling the > grabbing mechanism? Or would that be done some other way? > > Thanks! > fg > This kind of problem has been solved by HP and other plotter manufacturers. Earlier plotters have more interesting mechanical solutions than never ones. Two major types of mechanisms were used for pen storage and pickup: linear and round. Linear was used in earlier HP models 72xx for example, where pens were lined up along X-axis. Round ones in newer plotters that take much less space as paper is moved along one axis. However, your mail makes me think that you are going to deal with a problem that plotters do not have, paint drip. Plotters used felt pens with ink container being part of the pen. You probably need to develop a special brush that will carry paint with it. My choice would be airbrush as it's closest to inkjet which can produce paint brush like strokes. Still not the same but closest I can think of. It's likely that CNC is not necessarily the way to go if all you want is paint objects. There is more software and drivers for moving picture from a digital to physical form. -- Rafael ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Open Source Business Conference (OSBC), March 24-25, 2009, San Francisco, CA -OSBC tackles the biggest issue in open source: Open Sourcing the Enterprise -Strategies to boost innovation and cut costs with open source participation -Receive a $600 discount off the registration fee with the source code: SFAD http://p.sf.net/sfu/XcvMzF8H _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
