I finally tuned the plotter a bit to make it perform faster. I was trying to make it move faster by increasing the stepper motor speed, it turns out optimizing the pen up/down action was really where all the slowness was and makes everything appear to run faster. It’s quite spiffy now and I’ve been plotting non-stop this past week.
Snowflakes courtesy of llemarie @ turtletoy.net.
One advantage of a drawing machine working with coordinates is that it does not need to see what it draws.
Under the blue light
I bought a fountain pen with a refillable cartridge, and some UV ink.
The UV ink is invisible to the naked eye but the pen did leave trails on the paper.
Someone in Brazil drew this on Mandalagaba years ago and I’ve used it to stress test plotters since :). I wish I could get in touch to show them.
This one was cursed, I’ve been trying it for months and something would always go wrong. It’s been an endurance test and I’ve made adjustments from the results. It takes about 3 hours to run.
Hexagon Truchet tiles courtesy of reinder @ turtletoy.net.
I’m getting closer to a very usable plotter, for now the prototype is serving all my plotting needs. Another prototype is in the works, this way I’ll be able to work on a plotter and keep another one for drawing. I keep finding ideas for really cool videos which I’m certain will make splashes online. I want to have my next steps figured out before I try to do just that. I know that at least the plotter build will be documented as a DYI project.
I found my birthday presents for the next 10 years
First trial with paint, I coded for “ink refill” capabilities for all instruments which require it. Obviously I’ve learned a few lessons here 🙂
It’s been a while since I pushed a feature to Mandalagaba worthy of a post.
I just pushed a tool I call “Fibonacci Assist”. It’s meant to help you draw Fibonacci spirals by overlaying the proper framing based on the beginning of your penstroke.
I was reminded of the existence of this sequence and its ties to nature reading the most excellent children book: Swirl by Swirl. The book is simply magnificent and so I thought I’d do my part to help bring into the world more Fibonacci spirals.
I have yet to play with it using a stylus.
