Monday, September 17, 2012

Big Red's Z-axis is fixed!

You heard it here first, folks! We've got the z-axis of Big Red working as well as it ever will! We now have smooth, continuous motion that can be calculated to any distance. This is going to make printing with Big Red so much easier and faster.

We even have a video on the movement:

Click here for the video!

As for details on how we did it:
We discovered that our encoder pulses per inch (Stuff that scales the movement) was off 100,000 on the Z axis. The original scale was 1,310,000, and the new scale is 1,200,000. This new scale is calculated with DynaTorch's built in utility, and accounts for the gear ratio of 60 and the lead of .1. (Don't worry if you don't know what that means, this is mostly for reference. These values come from our lead screw and universal gearbox, and are unlikely to change)

This change allowed us to move the motor more than 2000 pulses with the SmartMotor Commands. The old M81 command was "D=2000 G TWAIT", copy and pasted many times. The new (now M80) command is "D=519480 G TWAIT". The M81 command had to be looped 18 times, causing a stuttery motion. The new command is smooth as silk. And just in time for the new school year!

See you all soon!

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