Wow, what an awesome forum! I had never heard about this up until now. I have been really scavenging all corners of the internet to find some new interesting things/scripts for Processing etc. I recently 'finished' my DIY homebrew pen plotter (CoreXY, so not polar) and am having a hard time finding good GCODE generation tools for my machine. Been using inkscape with two extensions but it's not all that great.
This is my machine:
![Image]()
What I found so far:
#1 is gcodetools; I have hacked this script in order to use tool changes. I have designed a pen changer that works really well and gcodetools is discontinued by its maker so I had to fix a lot of bugs in the script. Sadly the path generation is very bad and the printer gets choked out on the gcode paths causing ink from the sharpies to blot over into my sketchbook. Sometimes it just hangs on the scripts. So okay I thought: fudge this, I'll try a new tool.
#2 gcodeplot; another inkscape extension, this one lets you choose 'gcode' as a file extension when saving the file. Works really well, the most beautiful paths and really fast gcode. No trash points, just really well thought out movement and plotted lines. Sadly this one has no tool change and it's built in such a way that it's basically impossible to get the tool changes in. So I'm still looking for a script that allows tool changes, especially with custom gcode for each change.
#3 Drawbot_image_to_gcode_v2; One of the best generators I've found out there thanks to this topic. I have completely overhauled the script to suit my printer. Custom header and footer gcode and disabled comments for now. The only issue I'm having is that my image is generated correctly, but when the gcode is generated, the image is suddenly upside-down. I am in the process of adding automatic tool changes to this script, but I am still figuring out how it knows the colors and how I can bind a pen to a specific color.
Here is an image of my first attempt (self-portrait):
![Image]()
And here a timelapse of the first attempt being drawn:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94pTttbQ1tc
My printer is called LotusXY, can draw with a multitude of pens but my favorite is the Rotring Rapidograph (using the 0.25mm pen in the stopmotion) which I can refill with 'Indische Inkt' (Dutch product I guess, note that this is NOT 'Chinese ink'). The positioning system is called CoreXY and works with fishing string for which I created my own grip-pulleys on the stepper motors. The machine is completely self made and designed. It runs on Ramps 1.4 with Marlin 2.x firmware (beta), has an LCD panel and SD card slot so it can run solo without a laptop connected to it. For the pen up and down movements a mini servo is used and the pen rides on a high-precision linear guide that is salvaged from some old medical machine at the scrapyard. PSU is a repurposed nobrand ATX PSU. All the machine parts are printed on my selfbuilt 3D-printer, it's a derivative of the MendelMax 1.5 type printer.
Well that's all for now, if people are interested in the machine I can write a topic that shows images and has all the ins and outs.
Oh, and I really want to design my own polar plotter! I have two leftover stepper motors, another Ramps 1.4 control board and random bearings etc etc. I'm a pretty good designer when it comes to these small machines and want to make one with the same fishing string as the one used for the CoreXY machine. Because this string is incredibly lightweight, it has very low kinetic energy and therefor can move very fast without causing any jitter. I've seen these hangplotters also can have very smart carriages so I'm doing some research into these machines and will start a design for one pretty soon I guess.
Here is a hand-drawn artwork I made, I really love drawing geometric shapes:
![Image]()
Detail:
![Image]()
Have a nice morning/day/evening,
Marinus
What I found so far:
#1 is gcodetools; I have hacked this script in order to use tool changes. I have designed a pen changer that works really well and gcodetools is discontinued by its maker so I had to fix a lot of bugs in the script. Sadly the path generation is very bad and the printer gets choked out on the gcode paths causing ink from the sharpies to blot over into my sketchbook. Sometimes it just hangs on the scripts. So okay I thought: fudge this, I'll try a new tool.
#2 gcodeplot; another inkscape extension, this one lets you choose 'gcode' as a file extension when saving the file. Works really well, the most beautiful paths and really fast gcode. No trash points, just really well thought out movement and plotted lines. Sadly this one has no tool change and it's built in such a way that it's basically impossible to get the tool changes in. So I'm still looking for a script that allows tool changes, especially with custom gcode for each change.
#3 Drawbot_image_to_gcode_v2; One of the best generators I've found out there thanks to this topic. I have completely overhauled the script to suit my printer. Custom header and footer gcode and disabled comments for now. The only issue I'm having is that my image is generated correctly, but when the gcode is generated, the image is suddenly upside-down. I am in the process of adding automatic tool changes to this script, but I am still figuring out how it knows the colors and how I can bind a pen to a specific color.
Here is an image of my first attempt (self-portrait):
And here a timelapse of the first attempt being drawn:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94pTttbQ1tc
My printer is called LotusXY, can draw with a multitude of pens but my favorite is the Rotring Rapidograph (using the 0.25mm pen in the stopmotion) which I can refill with 'Indische Inkt' (Dutch product I guess, note that this is NOT 'Chinese ink'). The positioning system is called CoreXY and works with fishing string for which I created my own grip-pulleys on the stepper motors. The machine is completely self made and designed. It runs on Ramps 1.4 with Marlin 2.x firmware (beta), has an LCD panel and SD card slot so it can run solo without a laptop connected to it. For the pen up and down movements a mini servo is used and the pen rides on a high-precision linear guide that is salvaged from some old medical machine at the scrapyard. PSU is a repurposed nobrand ATX PSU. All the machine parts are printed on my selfbuilt 3D-printer, it's a derivative of the MendelMax 1.5 type printer.
Well that's all for now, if people are interested in the machine I can write a topic that shows images and has all the ins and outs.
Oh, and I really want to design my own polar plotter! I have two leftover stepper motors, another Ramps 1.4 control board and random bearings etc etc. I'm a pretty good designer when it comes to these small machines and want to make one with the same fishing string as the one used for the CoreXY machine. Because this string is incredibly lightweight, it has very low kinetic energy and therefor can move very fast without causing any jitter. I've seen these hangplotters also can have very smart carriages so I'm doing some research into these machines and will start a design for one pretty soon I guess.
Here is a hand-drawn artwork I made, I really love drawing geometric shapes:
Detail:
Have a nice morning/day/evening,
Marinus