Arduino with Gen 6 board

Hi,

I am working on a 3D printer (Mendel) having a Generation 6 electronics board. The printer has been assembled but I want to incorporate a powder dispenser to the printer and print using it. I have connected Arduino with Gen 6 and can communicate via I2C.

Now, the dispenser needs 1 digital and 1 analogue signal to run. The digital signal has (as you all know) two states i.e., 0 and 1.
I need help in sending a signal from the Gen 6 board to the Arduino to turn the dispenser ON and OFF. So when there is 1 on the output, the dispenser is dispensing and when there is 0, it is not.

Any suggestions !!!

Is it possible to send a signal when the motor of the extruder starts or something, any signal that can be used to turn the dispenser ON and OFF

... you can change the firmware in the g-code-parser - look where the codes "M101" (=extruder ON) and "M103" (=extruder OFF) are parsed. Here you can add specific code to set a digital output to HIGH or LOW.

---

Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

This is what I have found in the "process_g_code" file and as you can see, it is all commented out. And also case 103 hasn't been defined after "//turn extruder off." Case 104 is not commented out.

............
// Now, with E codes, there is no longer any idea of turning the extruder on or off.
// (But see valve on/off below.)

/*
			//turn extruder on, forward
			case 101:
				ex[extruder_in_use]->setDirection(1);
				ex[extruder_in_use]->setSpeed(extruder_speed);
				break;

			//turn extruder on, reverse
			case 102:
				ex[extruder_in_use]->setDirection(0);
				ex[extruder_in_use]->setSpeed(extruder_speed);
				break;

			//turn extruder off

*/
			//custom code for temperature control
			case 104:
				if (gc.seen & GCODE_S)
				{
					ex[extruder_in_use]->setTemperature((int)gc.S);
				}
				break;
.............

Will you please help me out here as I have just started working on this

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2011 11:18AM by Javaid Butt.

Here is the code that I am using in case you want to have a look.

FiveD_GCode_Interpreter_With_i2c_and_M117.zip

The 5D code that I have attached does not use M101 and M103 to turn the motor ON and OFF (maybe, that is why they have been commented out).

Someone suggested to look for when E is at zero, and when e is greater than zero. I found this in the cartesian_dda.pde file from line 275-291. If this is correct, will you please guide me through this!!! I have just started working on the programming aspect.

if (e_can_step)
		{
			dda_counter.e += delta_steps.e;
			
			if (dda_counter.e > 0)
			{
                                
				do_e_step();
                                real_move = true;
				dda_counter.e -= total_steps;
				
				if (e_direction)
					current_steps.e++;
				else
					current_steps.e--;
			}
		}

And for when e is at 0. Line 33 in the cartesian_dda.pde file.

// Default to the origin and not going anywhere
  
	target_position.x = 0.0;
	target_position.y = 0.0;
	target_position.z = 0.0;
	target_position.e = 0.0;
        target_position.f = SLOW_XY_FEEDRATE;

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2011 07:19PM by Javaid Butt.