Our shapeoko has produced its first output under control of g-code!  It’s taped up on the refrigerator at the space. 🙂

Inkscape converted a bitmap of the logo to a .svg, the  gcodetools extension generated g-code, and vi did the final modifications. 🙂 The .svg needs a little cleanup, but it was more than adequate for this first test.

We now have a profile that’s calibrated to within a few percent for X, Y, and Z, though there’s still work on max speeds and accelerations.  This plot was made with a ballpoint pen in a very crude holder.  The bitmap-to-path converter generated inside and outside paths for the lines, so the mismatch of the actual plotted paths gives us some insight into opportunities for mechanical improvement of the shapeoko/penholder system.  While the penholder is responsible for some of the tracking errors, we still have a lot to do to tighten up the shapeoko.  The plate joining the Y and Z axes wobbles surprisingly.  But it’s starting to work!

Update 10/2/12: Using the very convenient test facilities of the axis setup in linuxcnc’s stepconf tool, I maximized travel speed on all 3 axes.  The shapeoko1 profile is getting pretty usable.  Here’s a little real time clip of it plotting.  This one used a Sharpie, and even though it only stayed in one spot while the Z axis raised or lowered the pen, the paper bled the ink into very noticeable dots every time it stopped.