Professional Software for plotter XY! HELP!

#1

Hi owners of plotter xy!
Is there a program do draw with plotter xy profesionally?

  • Benbox is not working with vector (all of the pictures are low quality)
  • mDraw cannot draw the real size of the vector file. Import drawing with 150 mm every time.
  • Gremote doesn’t have friendly interface and need gcode.

Many people use GRBL library based software (eg LaserGRBL) which is cool and has a lot of professional features. But I cannot find GRBL sketch to be able Orion Arduino to work with GRBL.
For now I can use plotter as a toy, but I buy it not for playing, but for work.
Should I buy the original Arduino UNO to work with GRBL?

Please help me solve my problem with xy plotter.

#2

Hi LordPueblo,

We haven’t tried the GRBL, I am afraid that we can’t tell if it works with original Arduino uno.
Regarding to the issue that mDraw change the size of the svg image, you can drag the lower right corner of the imported image to scaling ratio. Do you mean the engrave size are always same no matter which size you adjusted on mDraw software?

#3

I need to have same size of file as I create it in Inkscape of AI, when I import the file it is always 150 (px or mm, I do not know). I need real size, to be able to draw picture.

#4

Hi LordPueblo,

Considering that sometimes the picture is too big, users can’t see the boundary after import the image. Need to zoom out to see. In addition, if one to one is displayed, the entire screen is easily filled. That’s why the engineer fixed the width of the image when it imported to mDraw software.
Sorry that this feature brings inconvenient for you in your application. Since the mDraw software is not under maintaining now, I am afraid to say that there is no plan to modify this feature on this software.

#5

It ssems for me now that the best way to have profexxional tool is to buy the original arduino module to be able to work with GRBL libraries and software (((
It’s so pity to loose money buying Makeblock plotter XY

#6

Hi LordPueblo,

Sorry to hear that! While, if the origninal arduino board works with the RGBL Libraries and software, the Orion board should work too since it is base on the Arduino uno board. But you may need to figure out the pins relationship between the original arduino uno board and the Me Orion board according to their circuit schematics.
Here is a link where shared the circuit schematics of Me Orion board to you for reference. Hope you can figure it out.

#7

I had the same problem for years…

Could someone from your team share the steps to modify and recompile mdraw ? That would help us sort resizing issues and many other things…

thanks

#8

As I have just un-archived my old notes to answer a question about GRemote I can also answer your question, provided you are using Windows.

the command to built mDraw is, from a dos box with working directory set to MdrawGui :slight_smile:

py -3.4 -m setup.py py2exe

This creates the executable under the dist folder. The bundle setting inside setup.py controls the copying in of required dlls. I believe I used 0 to try and get everything into a single EXE.

You will need to possibly add py2exe to your python installation, which needs to be 3.3 (4?) or higher. You might also find you have to add libraries such as pyserial. The simple way for all of this is to use PIP. If you are going to modify any of the GUIs you obviously need to install PyQt5, and convert the new forms to python modules using ui2py

Look through setup.py to get a feel for what the built options are and how it works, and you will probably have to read up a bit on py2exe to understand how it uses setup.py to control the operation.

#9