Over the last two days or so I’ve drawn the largest picture yet with my DrawBot. I started it on Friday night and, with numerous pauses and other misadventures, finished it this morning. The drawing is roughly 12″ x 18″ or so. 1 With no apparent rhyme or reason the drawing would pause numerous times. I would estimate about 25 or so. Also, the pen had a difficult time towards the end. I believe this was in part due to the angle of the pen on the drawing surface and the quantity of the ink left. As of this morning I was still using version 1.1.2, but I’m installing version 1.1.4 right now. 2
Here are some additional thoughts:
- In an earlier post I had mentioned I was having stalling problems while drawing. Sandy asked whether I was able to change serial ports to a different one and back again. The answer is “sort of.”
- When there’s a stall, here’s what I do:
- Click “SETUP->SERIAL PORT…“
- Click on some other serial port other than the one I’ve been using
- Disconnect and then immediately reconnect the USB cable from the computer
- Click on the original serial port I had been using
- As soon as the Drawbot reestablishes a connection with the Polargraph controller software, it starts drawing right where it left off
- I used to export a copy of the existing queue before doing all of this, and while it is still a very good idea, it doesn’t seem necessary.
- This exact process has worked several times in a row without a problem. Interestingly, step number 3 above3 is critical. If I exclude this step the program crashes.
- For this drawing I used a Pilot Precise Rolling Ball V5, extra fine tip, black. I had used a red pen of the same make for a prior drawing and it worked reasonably well.
- I’m in the process of designing a new pen gondola. I think something that can angle the pen downwards would help the pen apply ink to the page.
- Interestingly, I noticed after about 80% of the drawing was done the pen had a little bit of paper fuzz on it. Once I removed this, the pen seemed to work a lot better.
- The pen stopped drawing completely after about 85% of the drawing over all. This was a bit disappointing. However, since I was drawing from the top right to the bottom left and the version of the Polargraph controller I was using allows you to specify which area to start from, I just restarted the same drawing from the bottom right corner and ended up with a very satisfactory result.
In other words, it’s a nice day to start again.
Default Series Title- I rolled it up and gave it to a friend before I thought to take a photogram [↩]
- One of Sandy’s latest posts suggests there’s a 1.1.5 available, but I couldn’t find it. [↩]
- The disconnect and reconnection of the USB cable from the computer [↩]