chemshapes

I made this video to show everyone the development evolution. The host software now detects the available serial port devices, list it on the combo box. Select the right one and hit “connect”. It connects successfully to the Sprinter firmware running on the arduino.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yQbOFnh4co

From there, the host software just need to send GCode over the serial device and that’s it! Now I’ll work on the homing procedure, the refill procedure and next, I’ll “glue” skeinforge into it to slice an object. The print procedure is also done, but in a separate script. I’ll try to “copy and paste” in the host software so I can record a small preview of a “print” simulation!

Our software is all being done in python script language.

We are using skeinforge as the main slicer engine and standard REPRAP GCode to control the electronics. We will be adding some custom GCode commands to control some aspects of the projector, like turning it on/off and switch input lines.
The electronics are also largely based on the REPRAP RAMPS 1.2 board (essentially using an Arduino Mega and a Pololu driver), and uses a standard RAMPS firmware.
We are currently using the Sprinter ramps firmware (old carukilp firmware), which has being re-written from the ground up especially to take advantage of the pololu driver capability. This new ramps firmware also allows much faster axis movement with much less noise than any other reprap firmware available.
The UI is all done in QT, a well known and very reliable multi-platform UI library developed by Nokia.
OpenGL is also used for the realtime preview of the model to be printed, and also during the print itself, since OpenGL is extremely efficient to deal with double-buffered page flipping and Vertical Synchronization, minimizing possible glitches in the curing process during slice switch.
One of the main goals of the software is to be multi-platform from day one, hence the choices of using OpenGL, Python and QT. It’s being constantly tested on OSX, Windows and Linux, as it’s being developed and, so far, no big issues!