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Step 14Controller software - make it move!
Confirm you have set the right serial port, and that it's communicating with the arduino by looking for a Polargraph READY! at the top of the window. This line will be red if it's not connected. If you connect the machine after starting the controller, then you'll probably need to close and restart the controller too.
If you're running from Processing, then you should also be seeing incoming: READY in the Processing console every couple of seconds, in the background.
That's great! Unpause the command queue, and you'll see the first couple of commands get gobbled up by the machine, one after another. Click Set home. You'll see a command appear in the the command queue, and then it'll get sent to the machine right away. You will see the big purple dot that signals the location of the pen will move to the be in the middle of the top edge of the machine on-screen. The motors themselves will also give a little wriggle, and you'll find they're locked - they're now under power!
Ok, now click the Move pen to point button, which is as close to a manual move command as you have, and click somewhere right down at the bottom of the machine. With luck, you will hear and see the motors whirr into life, accelerate and then decelerate back down again.
The purple spot will move too. This is where the machine thinks the pen is.
Try this again, and make sure the sprockets are moving in the right direction. When the machine is moving the pen down the page, the left-hand motor will be spinning clockwise, and the right-hand motor will be spinning anti-clockwise. When the machine is moving up the page, it'll be the other way around.
If one, or both of your motors are going in the wrong direction, you might have got your datasheet wrong, or made an error when labelling them up or something. You just need to swap your two pairs of wires around. To be honest, trial and error is as good a way of working out the correct circuits as anything else, but it's hard to do until you're absolutely sure all the rest of it is working right.
Good work! I recommend a cup of tea! There's no part of a project quite so rewarding as that first moment when it moves, or makes a noise, or electrocutes you, I think you'll agree.
If you're running from Processing, then you should also be seeing incoming: READY in the Processing console every couple of seconds, in the background.
That's great! Unpause the command queue, and you'll see the first couple of commands get gobbled up by the machine, one after another. Click Set home. You'll see a command appear in the the command queue, and then it'll get sent to the machine right away. You will see the big purple dot that signals the location of the pen will move to the be in the middle of the top edge of the machine on-screen. The motors themselves will also give a little wriggle, and you'll find they're locked - they're now under power!
Ok, now click the Move pen to point button, which is as close to a manual move command as you have, and click somewhere right down at the bottom of the machine. With luck, you will hear and see the motors whirr into life, accelerate and then decelerate back down again.
The purple spot will move too. This is where the machine thinks the pen is.
Try this again, and make sure the sprockets are moving in the right direction. When the machine is moving the pen down the page, the left-hand motor will be spinning clockwise, and the right-hand motor will be spinning anti-clockwise. When the machine is moving up the page, it'll be the other way around.
If one, or both of your motors are going in the wrong direction, you might have got your datasheet wrong, or made an error when labelling them up or something. You just need to swap your two pairs of wires around. To be honest, trial and error is as good a way of working out the correct circuits as anything else, but it's hard to do until you're absolutely sure all the rest of it is working right.
Good work! I recommend a cup of tea! There's no part of a project quite so rewarding as that first moment when it moves, or makes a noise, or electrocutes you, I think you'll agree.
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