Firmware

The firmware is based on the zephyr rtos. The integrated shell over uart is used to control the machine.

Requirements

A working zephyr environment version >= v2.5 is required to build the firmware. (Zephyr getting started)

Supported boards

The firmware should run on every board supported by zephyr that has gpio and uart support and is clocked fast enough. Tested on a nucleo_f303re board.

Configuration

To configure what pins control the stepper motors edit the stepper_config.overlay file.

Build and flash

west build --board nucleo_f303re
west flash

Usage

To use the machine connect to the interactive shell over the serial connection (use screen or putty for example).

For commands that require a stepper id the following mapping applies:

• Stepper id 1: Cutter
• Stepper id 2: Mover

Disable steppers

To disable all steppers, for example to load a new tape or position the knife manually, exeute:

hacker disable_steppers

Knife

To manually lower or rise the knife execute

hacker knife knife_pos

knife_pos can either be "up" or "down"

Move

There are two move commands

• hacker move_rel stepper_id length Move relative to current position
• hacker move_abs stepper_id position Move to absolute position

Cutting jobs

To performe a cutting job execute

hacker hack length amount

Length is the number of holes every cut piece has. Amount is the number of pieces to cut. Make sure to properly set the cutting position prior to executing a job.