Thursday, March 21, 2024
Remembering the Maths lessons from 40 years ago...
I've reached the point where the classic delta approximation isn't good enough for calibrating, so I had to make my own mathematical model. ChatGPT was of limited use, so I had to do it the old-fashioned way. Took a while (3 pages of gibberish scrawl) but I got there. I think. Long time ago, inverse kinematics not my speciality...
Next step after verifying a few test cases is to integrate that with the Control Panel and see if I can get to predictability rather than just repeatability and small increments.
I've put a wire on the needle probe so I can hook it up, and I'll put a piece of copper-clad PCB on the microscope stage. This should let me figure out when I get the driver calibrated enough to run along a reasonably flat surface. That was done by poking a bit of 28ga nichrome ("vape wire") inside the needle and wiring it to the croc clip that attaches the probe to the beam.
If all that works, we can try drawing things properly and I'll gitlab the Control Panel for general amusement. If it doesn't work, well, the Control Panel now has a big, red "STOP" button on it that resets the serial port and kills the GRBL driver!
