Week 10, Machine Design

This week assignment tasks are

a) To automate machine

b) To document the group project and individual contribution

Layout the circuit

The first step is to layout a Gestalt Nodes to an axis motor each. The general idea is something like the picture below.


First thing first

There are a couple of things to do first before you can start working on automating your machine.
First is to install Python 2.7 by selecting Windows X86-64 MSI Installer (2.7.0). Followed by installing pyserial-3.0.1.win32.exe (md5) into the laptop. Lastly is to install pip-8.1.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl (md5, pgp)
Tutorial on how to do the above installation can be followed up in these videos.

Python 2.7 and setting the system path.


pyserial


python pip

Generally the Python 2.7 is for you to do your programming, pyserial is for communication between the laptop to gestalt nodes via the usb FDTI through the Fabnet board. The python pip is for package management system used to install and manage software packages written in Python.

What's next?

Now is to make a Fabnet board. Download the files from FABNET

Fabnet Board

Unzip and open files 076-000a.brd and 076-000a.sch in EagleCAD.
Watch this video on how to convert 076-000a.brd into PCD GCode for milling.


This is what the board looked like after going through milling operation and components soldered on.


Completed Fabnet


Fabnet in use

Gestalt up next.

In order to understand how input signals are processed by gestalt_node then processed and output to control and rotate the stepper motor, we have to visit this Gestalt nodes website.
After going through all these mumbo jumbo, we began hooking up circuitry to the stepper motor assembly.

Hookup to module

Test run on a single axis module

Download the gestalt packages in zip file from imoyer/gestalt
Next unzip then copy all the files and save them in a new folder, named it gestalt-master.
Open the command prompt window, change directory and type in setup.py install as shown below.


setup.py install

Open single_node.py in notepad and edit the command line number 25: interfaces.serialInterface(baudRate = 115200, interfaceType = 'ftdi', portName = '/dev/ttyUSB0'.
Ensure the portname is COM4 instead of ttyUSB0

Save the file and type,
C:\Users\HENG LOONG\Desktop\gestalt-master\examples\machines\htmaa\single_node.py in the command prompt to link up with a gestalt_node.

The result weren't successful but we still proceeded to open xy_plotter.py from gestalt-master folder.
Edit the command line number 25: interfaces.serialInterface(baudRate = 115200, interfaceType = 'ftdi', portName = '/dev/ttyUSB0'. in notepad.
Ensure the portname is COM4 instead of ttyUSB0

We realized that both python programs couldn't run in windows environment. We did some reading and found that the programs would performed in ubuntu enviroment. Our team leader Mark Ng has a Mac Book and decided to give it a go. Please visit this link to his web page.

The Results

It seems it worked fine on our team leader Mark's Mac book. His programs for the XY module transverse can be downloaded here.
Right click to Save Link As to download them.

hitme python program

our_mouse python program

xy_square python program



Finally the Modular XY axis in working order.
Now its time to shoot the bear.



Click on this link to my group web page.

My comments

The most frustrating part is learning and understanding the gestalt node board. For this part in the github, there are too many information and we couldn't zero in which is most suitable to use. We were also struggling afloat as we have to deal with python programming because of weakness in computer programming and in electronics. We wished we could use much guidance here. Example, when we trying out the python program, we only realized much later that the button on the gestalt node board is used to perform initialization for the stepper motor. Hopefully, we could develop much more than just shooting a bear.