XY Plotter v2.? problems

#1

Hi,
I have assembled a V2.? plotter the last 2 days. I say v2.? because I don’t know whether this is a v2.0 or a v2.02… It has the Makeblock orion board and the 3&4 limit switches are on connector 6 if this helps anyone…

Oring GRemote I can move the head over the complete surface, this seems to work fine at least.
However when sending a drawing to it (e.g. Fish or logo from the makeblock provided examples), the plotter seems to ‘lost’ on the surface are, instead of drawing one nice drawing in the center of the area, it seems to be drawing several parts at the sides of the paper, almost like it’s off-edge and wrapping around to the other side…

Also the pencil is ‘jumping’ across the paper instead of being dragged, so you get a very tightly dotted line instead of a real line. Could this be related to PPM settings? I have left everything to default settings.

I’m quite confident I’ll get this working with some help, But I wanted to say that I find the instructions quite poor. The assembly/hardware part is quite fine, but the software documentation is really bad, there are bits and pieces everywhere, some in PDF, some in docx, some in html…
For a product which costs 300 Euros I really think the documentation could use an improvement.

Thanks for your help!

#2

Hi @vyruz

Sorryfor the confusion, your XY Plotter is V2.0, we only have 2.0. The V2.0.2 is theversion of software…We will clarity it soon, Makeblock is plan to update thewebsite and all manuals/instructions, hope to provide a better user experience.For yourissue, please pay attention to the servo arm angle as follow picture. Adjust ituntil the assemble angle is correct, shaft works perfect with the bearing.If yourproblem still exist, please contact us at support@makeblock.ccso we can check in time, thanks!

Makeblock Team

#3

Hi @Perome,

Thanks for your response, I’m at work now but I’m quite sure the angle of the servo and pencil holder is correct. Nevertheless I will double check tonight.
This could explain the dotted lines.

Can you confirm which Arduino board should be selected for the ‘MAkeblock Orion’ board? I’m almost sure it’s an Arduino Uno, but in this guide (about XY Plotter V2.0, which I have), tells me to select the Leonardo board…

However, I’ve got the feeling I should do some kind of motor calibration or something. There are some settings in the GRemote app, and then you’ve got the setting screw on the stepper motor drivers, but nowhere is actually explained how to configure these 2 together…

I have the feeling the motors are moving too ‘violently’, If the plotter is making a drawing, the whole frame is shifting about 1cm in all directions across the table, the foam feet that came with it don’t provide enough grip to hold it in place.

Lastly, there seems to be a problem with the ‘home position’ of the plotter head. When sending a drawing to it, the head first moves to the opposite corner of the one that marked as ‘0’ on all the pictures in the assembly manual. I did move the head using my keyboard to the correct 0 position, and then clicked the ‘SET XO’ and ‘SET YO’ buttons, but this does not seem to affect my drawing.
The fact that the drawing starts in the wrong corner, wouldn’t be as much a problem, but then the plotter seems to draw some parts of the fish in every corner, instead of the middle of the area. To me it seems like the drawing is overflowing the limits of the work area, and the plotter is wrapping around to the other edge…

#4

Hi, I think Orion board is Uno, Leonardo is for Me baseboard. You must use the wrong firmware.
“It has the Makeblock orion board and the 3&4 limit switches are on connector 6”–I think you should use below software package.

http://learn.makeblock.cc/learn/resources/XY-plotter-V2.02-full-package/GCodeParser_Makeblock_Orion(XY-Plotter-V2.02).zip

#5

After Evans reply I double checked, and I am using the XY Plotter V2.02 packages for Orion.

I made a video (sorry, 10 minutes long, real problems start after 6 minutes) which shows what happens when I send the fish drawing to the plotter.
Would be great if someone could take a look at this video and hopefully come up with some suggestions:

#6

Hi！
I watched your video, your XY plotter V2.0 has been able to work. But there are some issues that need to be adjusted.
Tip 1：
Check your settings for the stepper motor. As shown below.

Pasted image1115x750 489 KB

Tip 2：
Change the Z value in GRmote software, recording lift and drop the size of the Z value. Changes in the value of the sample Z * .cnc file with Notepad, and then save the file.（Note：Z value represents the angle of 9g Micro servo）

#7

Thanks @Ouyang_Albert, this actually solved my problem, thanks!
I guess the manual is not as bad as I depicted it in my original post, I just overlooked this DIP switch setting, sorry!

#8

Thank you for your feedback, we will modify the instructions and improved control software. Because GRmote software is more complex, resulting in many problems. Sorry, we will launch a new version of the software as soon as possible, please pay attention to our Google+ or Facebook.
Thank you!
Makeblock’s engineer！

#9