Week 15: Machine design


Group assignment: actuate and automate your machine document the group project and your individual contribution


What is G-code?


G-code is the most widely used programming language for controlling industrial machines such as mills, lathes and cutters as well as 3D-printers. I found this interesting link for more informations.

Inkscape

Since I'm quite bad in programming, I just did a test of gcode following this tutorial.
Below you can see the list of steps that I have followed.





First I made a drawing, in this case a spiral



Then I followed the steps to create a Gcode of this image





This is what should appear



Go to Extensions - Gcodetools - Tools library and select cylinder



Using text tool (F8 key) change tool diameter to 0





Select your drawing and go to Path, Select Object to Path. Then again select again your drawing and go to Extensions - Gcodetools - Engraving. Go to Preferences tab, select file name GCODE.ngc and directory in which it will be saved



After clicking on apply I was stopped by an error



After several attempts (the only suggestion inserted was "home") I decided to look for the solution on internet and I found this other tutorial, where it was explained how to write the directory correctly.



Once I inserted the directory I returned on engraving and I selected apply. This window appeared:



But don't worry, this seems quite normal, in fact this is the result



The last tutorial's advice is that to open the file and remove header and footer

so I did it



ChiliPeppr

To test the gcode before sending it to the machine we first tested it on ChiliPeppr. I went to TinyG Workspace (here the link)



to get a preview of the drawing insert the gcode here (just open the file)



This is our result, and if you want to see the movement's preview just click on play a simple run of the Gcode