CNC Spirograph

[spalm]

Are you Board? Want to do something really useless with your CNC? Turn it into a Spirograph. I wrote a VB application to generate Gcode. It’s actually kind of fun to watch it getting carved out.

Let me know if it works for you,
Steve

EDIT: Version 1.3 is available in post #22

Similar Threads:

• AutoCAD Spirograph

[santiniuk]

Neat program spalm. I had a bit play to try it out.

I don't get the preview of the circles in the window.

Gcode works fine.

output pic attached for ref.

Cheers....

[Evodyne]

Spalm,

What a cool program. I havn't fiddled with spirographs is 30+ years! Hey-I tried to copy to an XP machine. When I go to run I get an error message "Component richtx32.ocx or one of its dependencies not correctly registered: a file is missing or invalid". Any ideas?

Lance

[ger21]

I accidentally got it to output 25K+ lines of G-code. I had to kill it with the task manager. Also got it to crash if the little circle is set to 0.

[spalm]

Hey,
Sorry guys for any problems, I banged this out in Visual Basic Ver 6. I can see why Microsoft went to VB.net. But I must admit that I had a few smiles playing with a spirograph.

Santiniuk, never seen that one before. For better visuals, I poked around the net and found this link:
Dartmoth Spirograph
They are using the same kind of algorithm as I did. Only they use radius instead of diameter. You can try out the values there, and then convert and plug them into my app.

Evodyne, you are missing the driver for a RichTextBox. I zipped up my set. They should live in the Windows/System32 directory.

Gerry, it’s a toy. You deserve every crash that you get. Seriously, I can range check the input numbers and limit the output if you think that I should post a Ver 1.1.

Steve

[Evodyne]

Spalm,

Hey-copied everything for the ocx to system and I'm good to go. Thanks.

Lance

[ger21]

Gerry, it’s a toy. You deserve every crash that you get.

Would you be interested in posting the code? Or some math references maybe? I'd like to create a similar AutoCAD VBA macro.

Don't worry about the crashes, just part of the learning curve.

[spalm]

Gerry, look at the link in post #5. It contains the formulas for epicycloids. It also has some java source code at the bottom that reads pretty well.

I knew that I had let options available for the code exploding. Several of them I protected, several of them not. This is always the boring part of programming; protecting your code from users. I saw this as a one time use toy that was not worth that much investment. If anybody thinks I should take it to the next level, I will.

On second thought, I would have loved to have this tool on the day that I got my first machine running, so maybe I will dress it up a bit. (?)

Steve

[santiniuk]

Spalm,

Just checked the program again on a different pc. Preview window works fine. Must be something my end on main pc.

Cool program

Cheers

[the_paco]

Cool little piece of software!

Thanks for sharing!

[Evodyne]

Spalm,

Hey, it's a toy-but it's a fun toy. And those little doodles might nicely decorate small container lids makng them highly decorative. You might put a "max revolutions" limit in that (if the ratios don't quite line up) will only generate a given amount of g-code. I also seem to remember (from well back into childhood, so it's a bit foggy) that the spirograph kit had other shapes you could roll the smaller gears around. I seem to remember a long piece with rounded ends. What would really be neat would be to define a path out of spline sections that represents the big gear. My vote is to fiddle with it a bit more.

Lance

[nuplowboy]

Sweet program! Looks like now I've got some G-code to run whenever my machine's finished! By Tuesday, I should at least have a 2-axis machine that I can tape a marker to and let it spirograph away!

Thanks for posting this, and the XP fixes.

[spalm]

Well here is version 1.1
It should be much more Gerry proof.

I also added:
Gcode count info box that will tell you how large your listing output will be.
Emergency Stop button.
Total design size info box.

Evodyne, there was a rectangular gear and also a kind of triangle gear. I am a bit stumped at implementing them at the moment. I will keep fiddling. One thing I stumbled on today was to generate the same figure with two different StartX points. You get a nested or thick look. Maybe make this more automatic, or allow the user to control when the screen is cleared.

Anyway, suggestions always welcome,
Steve

EDIT: Version 1.3 is available in post #22

[Jason Marsha]

Great program. I tried and might even carve designs in my cupboard doors.
Three cheers for spalm.

Jason

[ger21]

Well here is version 1.1
It should be much more Gerry proof.

Thanks for the link above. After searching for another hour or so, I figured out how many times you need to spin the 2nd circle to complete the pattern. Then another hour to figure out the greatest common multiplier (denominator?) in VB (VBA). Now I'm all set to make an AutoCAD version. It'll be a bit of a pain to use, though, as I don't think I can have any type of preview using VBA. Thanks Steve.

[spalm]

Yup, GCD Greatest Common Divisor. That threw me for a loop too (pun intended). Thank goodness for google.

Well I wasn’t going to post another version until something major changed, but I found a machine at work that gave me Santiniuk’s black preview screen. It seems like this has something to do with running ‘themes’ in XP. I changed the box to use system colors rather that black and white, and it fixed his graphics.

Santiniuk, could you give it a try. Are you running a theme?

Also added a zoom feature and fixed one weird math bug.
Steve

EDIT: Version 1.3 is available in post #22

[ger21]

A couple hours and It's almost done. Might have been one hour if I'd remembered I had to define pi Thanks again Steve. I'll post this in the AutoCAD forum sometime in the next week when I have time to polish it up a bit.

PS. No kidding about Google. Don't know how we ever got by without it.

[nuplowboy]

Just got done with the first 2-D test of my machine, using a spirograph file from version 1.0...

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showth...857#post103857

I better go download the latest version...

Thanks for the awesome program!

[the_paco]

Anybody noticed that their CPU is used at up to 100% with Spiro?

This, as long as the program is running...?!

See attached...

I do still like it though!

[Switcher]

I had the same problem with the black screen on the right, (V 1.2) fixed it, neat program. Also, noticed it using 100% of CPU (like the_paco said). It does this while not drawing/generating g-code. Still a fun program, Good Job!