Hi all,
New to this machine so please forgive my arrogance!
I plan to purchase the Original snapmaker and modify it to become an xyz stage for mounting a camera (<500grams) onto.
Q1: What is the x and y resolution? or minimum increment
Q2: Can the screen (or be connected to a PC to) control the X, Y and Z movements individually?
Q3: Are the translation bearings on the linear rails connected to a milled or extruded metal rail?
Eric
The published minimum resolution is 0.05mm, but that appears to be a limit in Luban, not in firmware. Other users have printed with a layer height as small as 0.025mm using Cura. There are other threads in the forum that say based on the step motors that drive the linear rails, it will be more accurate moving in increments if 0.04mm.
The v1 controller can be controlled by a PC. It requires a USB cable, as the v1 does not support a wifi connection. When connected via USB, it presents a serial port. Luban has a serial console, but any serial console tool (e.g. putty) will work. This isn’t a particularly user friendly interface though. You’ll have to enter G codes into the console manually. Probably a mix of G90 (absolute positioning) and G92 [E<pos>] [X<pos>] [Y<pos>] [Z<pos>] (set position). You absolutely can design whole programs and run them, but writing GCode is a bit beyond the scope of your question. If writing GCode is a bit too ambitious, you might be able to do something using the CNC software to design a tool path, then modify that to suit your needs. The devs posted a list of GCodes supported by the v1.
The linear rails are extruded aluminum.
The original had some issues with the Z axis being a bit underpowered. a 500g camera should be ok. I haven’t weighed my modules, but I believe they’re all at or under that number. It’s mostly a problem once the machine is powered off. Some users have powered off, only to have the print head drop and impact the work piece before they could remove it from the bed. Depending on what you’re photographing, that may or may not be a concern.
The original also doesn’t have any 4-6 axis movements. You can’t rotate the camera or the object on the build plate. So I’m envisioning you mounting a camera on the Z axis that points straight down, manually focus the camera, then move the camera around in the X/Y axis.
There was a bit of work to reverse engineer the v1 cables. If you’re really motivated, you might want to build a camera mount that you can control via GCode. The section of M codes mostly control the modules, whereas the G codes mostly control the rails.
Here is the kickstarter campaign page, precision accuracy is shown there, i guess clewis is right with the magic number of 0.04mm this means ±0.02mm accuracy, if i am not wrong.
You could control the machine by gcode commands or jog mode from touchscreen.
Thanks lads. The gcode list is much appreciated too. I think the jog on the screen will suffice for now, Potentially we may run the motors using a smoothieboard in the future.