Re: ALTERNATE EBOT CONTROL SOFTWARE

Home Evil Mad Scientist Forums Egg-Bot ALTERNATE EBOT CONTROL SOFTWARE Re: ALTERNATE EBOT CONTROL SOFTWARE

#21412
dnewman
Participant
No, there is no software to directly control the Eggbot from Corel.  While there have been a couple of other contributions to control the Eggbot by other means, they are not as polished as the Inkscape-based method and require a certain amount of sys admin type skills to set up (e.g., there was a nice Perl script to process HPGL from a terminal command line and drive the Eggbot that way using HP plotter commands).

In the past, others have exported SVG files from Corel and then opened them in Inkscape and plotted them on the Eggbot.  Whether this will work for you depends upon what version of Corel you have and if it produces compatible SVG files.  It’s worked in the past although I myself do not know the version of Corel which was being used.

When you go the above route, you don’t need to know much about Inkscape: just how to install and launch it. You also need to install the Eggbot software.
The first time you launch Inkscape, it is slow to startup as it inventories your font collections and performs other “first run” operations that take tens or hundreds of seconds, depending upon the speed of your computer.  Once Inkscape is running and listening to you, you can open the SVG file saved from Corel and plot it via the Extensions menu item in Inkscape.  Under the Extensions menu, you should see “Eggbot…” and from that submenu select “Eggbot Control”.  A window will appear which allows you to control the eggbot, including doing single pen up/pen down operations from the “Setup” tab.  The “Manual” tab allows you to spin the egg CW or CCW by a given number of steps by selecting the command “Walk Motor 2 (egg)”, specifying the number of steps to “walk” the motor, and then clicking the “Apply” button.

As to gcode, while one could in theory write a gcode to EiBotBoard board converter, no one has done that as far as I’m aware.  Or at least not a polished, user friendly converter.  (The EiBotBoard is the controller board — the electronics — on an Eggbot.  It does not speak gcode.)

Dan