Beginning early this week my main goal was to be able to complete attachment of the motors to the gantry to allow us to devote most of the week towards making progress on our routines and algorithm. I was able to complete this early on which enabled to test more parts of our code. We were able to verify this week that our diagonal control of the steppers is functional, as well as our ability to move to set coordinates on the gantry efficiently. We were able to program in the locations of the colors in the palette and are able to go to a designated color and swab for paint.
However, as the completion of the gantry allowed us to test it further we discovered that the design was inconsistent in one of the directions. Occasionally the motor would sputter and be unable to move in that direction, although there were no obvious causes. One possible ailment was that the belts on the bottom half of the gantry were looser, and additionally the support rod from the head would sometimes fall out of the bottom carriage. In order to fix both of these issues, the bottom carriages were redesigned to be stronger, easier to detach from the gantry for adjustments, and to hold the support rod completely.
This modification to the design set back some of the scheduled progress for this week, but overall we were still able to test and improve our gantry control routines. Currently the carriage has been redesigned and has been printed, but extensive testing on the new design has not been completed. In the coming week this design will be tested and iterated on if necessary, with the goal of completing this early in the week so that we may get a demo ready by Wednesday. For the rest of the week my goal is to test the gantry system more , and improve its overall consistency in operation. Additionally, I will be working closely with Eric to write and modify the current control routines. My progress for this week was setback, but this is why our schedule had slack time built in for unseen problems and overall the gantry design and implementation has made good progress towards its completed design.