After spending a beautiful Norwegian summer setting up our Farmbot inside our green house (if anyone knows Norwegian weather, that seemed necessary ) I have some questions related to issues we have had.
First is scheduled farm events. I tested the sequence manually, worked fine, but it has not activated as planned in the farm events calendar. It is synced and the timekeeping seems okay when I log on my computer to check the interface. Do I have to have a computer continuously logged on next to it for running? I canât think of anything wrong with what I did, except that it just didnât work, it didnât even try and start. Any tips from similar experiences is welcomed.
Second is an issue related to starting up the bot itself. After I have worked on it for a day, Ill come back the next day to find out that the z axis coordinates has been mysteriously changed by about 150 clicks. So I have to reset the 0 point for the z axis manually each day (with would of course make it difficult to run any of my sequences properly)
And lastly, I dont have much spare time and in depth programming/diy experience, so spending a lot of time to install end-stops or change a lot with the bot itself is not going to happen quickly. Is there any way I can make the absolute movement do only one axis at the time? The movement in one axis seems fine, but combining the 3 makes for a lot of noise and small missteps. When executing a tool loading/unloading sequence, I only have 1 mm to go on before it starts catching on the tool bay, screwing up the coordinates completely and every coordinate has to be rechecked and reprogrammed. This seems extremely fragile. End stops seems necessary in terms of creating a âhomeâ where it can re-coordinate automatically, and also, I think it would be wise to look into different ways of doing loading/reloading of tools.
Hello, congratulations on getting your FarmBot set up!
Just a couple of notes here:
Double-check your deviceâs timezone (in the Device widget)
Setting the home (0) position can be done using the encoders. There is also a sequence command to do this automatically in a sequence: Find Home.
One axis can be moved at a time by splitting a 3-axis move absolute command into three steps, one for each axis. You can use offsets to do this in some situations, although easier methods are under development.
Keeping to one issue per topic generally helps keep a conversation accessible and on track.
Thanks for the feedback, and I agree on the last post. I will try some of the tips I get here and then create separate posts if the issue(s) continue. I just didnât want to flood the forum as my first action in here
The timezone is correct
I first tried with the encoders, but the z axis homing sequences didnât work properly, and it just plunged down into the soil. To counter small errors that occur during the day, I would also have to make the bot find and set home by itself several times?
Ah, yes that is also doable, but creating a sequence of planting/watering for each plant would take ages with that approach. I am glad to hear that this is something that is looked into, looking forward to it!
And to you Klimbim:
I have all motors on âYesâ at that parameter. I dont want people to accidentally âtouchâ the robot and mess up the gantry. Should I power it off?
Nope, but if it qould hve been off this could have explained why your axis moved âmagicallyâ. Btw: I measured the power consumption to 10 W with all motors powered at all timesâŚ
) I have some questions related to issues we have had.