Spent some more quality time with the robot at the end of last week. I was able to calibrate both axis for accurate movement. In other words now if I tell it to move 10 inches it actually move 10 inches within reasonable precision. I also spent more time writing up a sample gcode file to test with. It is a very simple file but that allowed me to just write it out from scratch and not have to boot up CAD and then import it into a parser.

I rigged up a sharpie in the tool holder and had the robot drawing the test file on a piece of paper taped to a board that I put in the machine. I also imported one of my cad drawings into the parsing software and had it spit out gcode for a knife profile and had the robot draw that.

Now once I get the small wiring harness made to add into the plasma cutter so the robot can actuate the torch, I will be able to make some test cuts to figure out feed rate and cut kerf. Then.. then we take over the world… mwahahahahaha… ok not really. No once the machine is calibrated with those final items.. I get to try cutting something interesting.