DIY Laser levelling using webcam and laser level

[John McNamara]

Hi Imclaren

Your timing is good Leolfs and I have been discussing getting the project underway, We have already purchased the ball screws and linear rails. the initial design for the laser cut components is complete.

The need is to connect the machine to devmonkeys software he that he outputs to the screen, fairly simple I guess once we get a handle on the code he posted.

Any contribution will be appreciated.

I do hope devmonkey is well, if anyone knows him personally send him my regards.

Regards
John

[lmclaren]

Hi Imclaren

Your timing is good Leolfs and I have been discussing getting the project underway, We have already purchased the ball screws and linear rails. the initial design for the laser cut components is complete.

The need is to connect the machine to devmonkeys software he that he outputs to the screen, fairly simple I guess once we get a handle on the code he posted.

Any contribution will be appreciated.

I do hope devmonkey is well, if anyone knows him personally send him my regards.

Regards
John

What sort of output would you like?
I am guessing that the error signal that is shown as a bar on the right is what you are after?
Are you running this on specific hardware that has a suitable hardware output or would you like a serial data stream from a comm port with an error value?

What sort of input does your motor controller want? step / dir or error signal?

[devmonkey]

Hi Imclaren

Your timing is good Leolfs and I have been discussing getting the project underway, We have already purchased the ball screws and linear rails. the initial design for the laser cut components is complete.

The need is to connect the machine to devmonkeys software he that he outputs to the screen, fairly simple I guess once we get a handle on the code he posted.

Any contribution will be appreciated.

I do hope devmonkey is well, if anyone knows him personally send him my regards.

Regards
John

Hi John,

Yes all good here thanks just very busy on other projects and work.

On getting the error signal out of the java app and into your hardware there are two choices,
1. Integrate a serial library,
2. Make a small change to the app to print the error to standard out and then pipe this directly into a serial comm port.

I don't really have time to do this or test it right now but someone else could have a go, (2) is much easier if you don't want to mess about with the code too much, there is a tutorial on windows comm port piping here:
https://batchloaf.wordpress.com/2013...rt-in-windows/

Cheers, Joe

[lmclaren]

Hi John,

Yes all good here thanks just very busy on other projects and work.

On getting the error signal out of the java app and into your hardware there are two choices,
1. Integrate a serial library,
2. Make a small change to the app to print the error to standard out and then pipe this directly into a serial comm port.

I don't really have time to do this or test it right now but someone else could have a go, (2) is much easier if you don't want to mess about with the code too much, there is a tutorial on windows comm port piping here:
https://batchloaf.wordpress.com/2013...rt-in-windows/

Cheers, Joe

Thanks devmonkey, I hadn't thought of the standard out, I will give it a go.

btw, if you have the code you compiled to run on linux / raspberry pi that might help for the next chapter.

regards

Lee