New Host Software for Hydra-MMM Project

I am currently working on a new project called Hydra-MMM for multi-headed manufacturing machine. The machine is a cartesian positioning system with multiple, independent toolheads for performing simultaneous operations on the same workpiece (ie FDM prototyping and milling). Because the machine needed to have support for multiple heads and be able to do many things that a standard reprap machine cannot, the software and firmware needed to be heavily modified.

I ended up creating my own Arduino firmware as well as my own host interface for sending files and commands to the machine. I think the two packages create a very nice, simple alternative to the current reprap firmware and host software while still adding some new features. The host interface has a gcode file previewer as well as a realtime preview window to see what commands are currently being sent to the machine. I think it is somewhat similar to what skeinforge has for viewing builds, but it runs in parallel with the actual build. It has the ability to pause builds and send individual commands to the machine mid-build. I also did a lot of work adding new features to my firmware including the ability to do any stepping mode you want from full step all the way to 64x microstepping. These stepping modes can be changed at any time, including in the middle of a build (assuming you have paused file sending). Lots of additional gcode support was also added to make it more in-line with traditional machining packages (as we would like to do some milling on the machine). It also utilizes PID temperature control thanks to a library from the Arduino playground. All of this software and firmware was developed in about 2 weeks so I am sure it still needs some work and I would love to hear feedback from you guys!

The sourceforge page is located here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/hydra-mmm/

Feel free to try it out (the host software is compiled for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux) and please report back on your experience!

Here is a picture of the GUI. It shows the new file previewer I added which makes it really easy to skim through the timeline of a gcode file and see what the build will look like and look for any incorrect gcodes. Thick lines are used for extruded movements while thin lines are used for movements without extrusion. The color of the line also corresponds to the z height of the line to help with 3D visualization.

I have updated the Hydra-MMM software to v1.1 which improved some of the file preview abilities for the GUI. I also added a sample gcode by request so that all you have to do is download the zip at the sourceforge page and in 2 clicks you can try out the file previewer and see if it would be something useful to your application. As always feedback is appreciated so let me know if you have any ideas!

Download here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/hydra-mmm/

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/26/2010 02:56PM by cpwebste.

Hi There

Hope someone can help me, my programming skills is not good I am still learning. I only recently started playing around with the Arduino boards.

I am using a Arduino Duemilanove Atmega328 microcontroller to control a hot wire cutter that I build myself. It have 2 stepper motors, that are controlled by a ULN2003A driver. The one stepper motor run backwards and forwards and the other up and down.I want to use this device to cut Rc plane wings out of styrofoam but can only cut stright lines but not curves. Can anyone please tell where I can get simple code and GIUI that someone like me can understand. See url belowI to see what it will look like when it is finish.


[www.google.co.uk][/img]

Regards

Johannes

Nice work on the machine! You can try my arduino firmware that I posted right underneath this post. I added arc support. You would use only the X and Y steppers. Set the pins for the Z to -1 inside of _init. Then you can cut all the arcs you want. I actually made a modified version of the Hydra GUI that works with this firmware too. The GUI is a Processing Sketch.
You need to download the processing program here.
Download the GUI sketch here.
You also have to install controlP5 in …/processing/libraries/. Unzip and put the extracted controlP5 folder into the libraries folder of your processing sketches.
You can download it here
You can get my arduino firmware with arcs here.

I would suggest you modify your machine and make the two up and down motors and the two X axis motors to work independently. That way you can cut out wings with swept profiles and different base and tip cord lengths. The fastest way to set that up without a lot of programming would be to have two separate arduinos control the base and tip profiles. You would send movement commands to both, and they can use simple communication to stay in sync as they cut. Otherwise you can modify the firmware to have two X-Y axises and to accept a modified G-code (seems like a lot of work).