Takeoff!

There have been about 4 or 5 moments when Nick and I have given each other a high five after doing something with this machine... and this was one of those. The first successful 2.5 axis vector plot. We had a couple more kinks to work out, but a $5 run to the hardware store and 15-min of work were all it took. 

After the plane we moved on to a new drawing. We wanted to do a drawing that only the machine could do and not a skilled human with an airbrush. Well... maybe someone else could do it, but it would be difficult. 

183 CANVAS logo w/ Airbrush

More testing taking place in what looks like the kill room from Dexter.

Emerging Professionals

our first tries with new z set up as well as our new office.

Now off to the Real World

We have officially graduated and are now making steps towards an architecture of reality.

What everyone has always wanted... a machine to paint smiley faces.

Our machine reads (code) at a first grade level. You can kind of tell what it is trying to do, but it's pretty sloppy. Many things need changing, but it is just fine tuning. Each drawing should get successively better from here on. 

What we told it to paint.

What it painted.

and finally, the setup.

Go go gadget CNC AIRBRUSH!

Trying out one of the more exciting of all the possible z-axis mounts.

Soon we will attach this to the rest of the machine and have some

real fun.

All 3 axes working (mostly)

You fix a problem... you find a problem. This seems to be the

way this whole project has gone. All three axes work, but now

we can see that the x axis is skipping steps and the y axis is

snagging, causing it to jump.

Along with the list of things to do is create a rig that can hold

an airbrush so that we can spray paint on any surface.

Z-axis control

Using an 8 foot brake cable line from Sunflower Outdoor as a remotely located motor control, testing its ability to maintain strength through bends and in directional transfers. This may be the last piece towards full functionality. Now we can simply build several 'media heads' that attach to the y-sled and each are dedicated to a specific media type ie airbrush, dry erase marker, chalk, etc.

Technically, Nick opened this fortune cookie, but I was with him at the time so I will assume that the "You" referred to here is plural.

Work Continues

The machine gets better every time we work on it. A small tweak here and there, making sure nothing will break later on. Most the work recently has been moving the Z axis motor from the Y axis sled to the X axis sled (I think Nick and I have developed our own language to describe the project). The good news is that two potential clients have proposed projects for our machine. We will see where those lead too.....

A "Dry" Run (dry erase)

With the X and Y axes mostly completed, it was time for our first test. The Z axis that controls the moving of the pen off the board was not yet installed. Hopefully we will have that running soon. There is also a large amount of fine tuning to be done, but this big step keeps us motivated.

Atleast it looks cool.

We completed our first test of the entire assembly. The x and z axes are working great but the y axis is horrible. First, it would only go down, then when we got it to go up it would sometimes slip. Once we got those problems fixed, we realized that when the sled would move up and  then down and then back up, to what should have been the exact same position,  it was about 5% lower than the origin point. We think we have a solution, but only the next test will tell.

First Full Assembly Test from tim williams on Vimeo.

BOOM!

This is the first test with the x axis and y axis working. It has 2 problems.
1) Its lying on the floor (because we haven't build the legs yet).
2) The little Y axis sled can only go in one direction right now because of a.... mmm.. I'm going to call it a technical issue.

The writing's on the ground. from tim williams on Vimeo.

machine draw lines good

It draws about as well as I construct sentences, all not good like. I also just couldn't come up with a name for this post. It is by no means a "first test" because this was just a marker stuck to the sled with tape and glitches. Work continues to improve on this thing. 

p.s. Why is it so ridiculously difficult to format the text around these photos!?!? A simple text wrap is all I want. 

I am predicting that we will have some stuff done by the end of the week.

In 1895, when Louis Lumiere was testing his first movies, he said that it was, "a scientific curiosity with no commercial possibilities." I kind of feel like maybe what our machine is becoming is something similar. Probably not to the success of film, but definitely a scientific curiosity. 

Sqwiggle Maker

The question, "so what are you going to do with the machine?" keeps coming up. Doing our best impression of Lost season 6, we will now begin to answer this question for all our fans (are there any?) and ourselves. Heres what I call SqwiggleMaker 1.0. It takes images and converts them into horizontal sqwiggles directly corresponding to the grey scale of the image. 

Babies First Step

Babies First Steps from tim williams on Vimeo.

The x-axis is complete(with the exception of a couple tweaks). Heres the very first movements of the sled as it moves along our short track. Maybe we will have an image created by it soon!

Axis Completed from tim williams on Vimeo.

1 more step

We keep making small steps towards completion which is the only way to imagine finishing it. Otherwise, theres so many steps  involved that it becomes overwhelming.

x-axis magic from tim williams on Vimeo.

Construction of Moving Parts

   Above is a shot of the digital model showing how the vertical Y-axis slides along the horizontal X-Axis. From there, a "sled" will climb up and down the Y-Axis painting a pretty picture, most likely of rainbows and sunshine. Below shows how we design this stuff. You can see the X-axis we have already made with a piece of trace paper on top of it where we are literally drawing our next step.