Laser-Painting

Imagine being able to paint anywhere and on any surface, no matter how big the canvas is or how far it seems to be! This robotic controlled laser lets turn any landscapes into canvas.The idea is simple, as they usually are (at least in the beginning). Being fascinated by light painting, I decided to venture using the tools I have today at my disposal.The idea was to be able to grab any image and then draw a simplified version of it on a wall. Processing code would do all the analysis and then spit out angles for the Arduino to command the servos. This project has gone through three different iterations. After quite some changes on the coding department, I found a better way for the laser to follow a more clear path. The next problem turned out to be on the hardware side. Since the angles the laser had to move are so small, the servos couldn’t really get so precise and the first pictures turned out to be very… pixelated? I realized that unless I had better servos I would need to gear down the servos. I designed a gear box mechanism to give a 3:1 ratio to the laser, meaning that I would move the servos 3X more to get the same result, this in theory would give me 3X more resolution. And it did!

“And then I found these guys… Talking to Paolo Salvagione (Incredibly amazing person) he told me about these servo controllers he had found… Prepared to be amazed just as I was back then:The modified controllers, or SUPER modified controllers I should say, fit inside most stander servos, they replace the board and the potentiometer, in exchange they offer:

Includes 15bit absolute position encoder Profiled movements (control acceleration and velocity through movement)

Control loop running at 9,765 KHz !

Multiple bus interfaces including RS-485, multi-node uart, I2C! Up to 128 nodes on a single bus !

5 to 24V, 5Amps continuous

Multiple software interfaces: Stand alone application, MatLab dll, Arduino library and more

Need to say more? “

Our Supermodified controllers can connect through I2C, UART and RS485 meaning that you can connect more than 100 devices to the same bus and control them simultaneously. To do this however you will need to change the address of each new controller.

Sebastian Morales is an engineer, artist and researcher based in NYC. His work often exists in the confluence of sculpture, kinetics, biomimicry and code. Born and raised in Mexico he moved the United States in 2009 where he has lived since. Currently a candidate for New York University Interaction Telecommunication Program (NYU ITP). He is deeply interested in solving complex technical problems by developing new technologies, processes and tools. You can find Sebastian’s instructable here!
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