Substitute pen with water pump

#1

Hi everyone! I’m trying to figure out if it’s possible to “extend” this framework and substitute the pen with a water pump and map the “pen_down” commands to the “pump_on”. It would be even nicer to add a third motor for the Z axis in order to move the pump closer to the desider area.

Do you have any ideas if this is possible and how could I do that with the XY Plotter? Do I need to rewrite somehow the firmware?

Thank you so much for reading this post, I have a lot of ideas on how to extend this amazing work.

Diego

#2

Instead of pen down you could use the laser commands (M codes), which would allow you on/off as well as variable flow rates. The laser output is via one of two Motor ports on the Orion board which supply 0-12Volts output at up to 1 Amp.

#3

Thank you so much @Adrian_S, it sounds like a really good idea! Do you know where can I find some code examples for Arduino IDE?

#4

On the Makeblock main page is a link to download the makeblock library for the Arduino, which adds some examples.

#5

I have a version of the GCode parser for the XY Plotter that maps the Z axis 0 to -1.5mm range to the M1 PWM output from 0 to 255. Most hobby level software that produces GCode gives good control over the Z values, but less control over the M codes, so I found this to be easier to use in practice. The updated GCode parser source is available in this thread: http://forum.makeblock.cc/t/upgraded-xy-plotter-6w-laser/3787

#6