I drew several of the sample figures that came with it, including Barack Obama and Taylor Swift's signatures, which will be useful when I want to forge the signatures on the Obama-Swift treaty I'm writing up.
And then, me being me, I dug into the Python code to draw some test figures.
My first attempt was using the axidraw-xy code, which connects to the CNCserver node.js server, which yielded not entirely satisfactory results.
It seems that the AxiDraw's stepper motors need to be driven together or opposing to get axis aligned steps, and at equal magnitudes. CNCserver imposes some scaling and some clamping. I spent a little time trying to reverse those transformations, but decided that it was easier to take the Inkscape extension code and kill off the Inkscape-specific bits and make a standalone bit of code.
The results are promising:
The code I was working with provides functionality for starting from a stop, accelerating along the path, and decelerating to come to a stop at the end. So, for my circle drawing, I just draw a bunch of short segments, which means the head is lurching along the entire time. It seems like it wouldn't be too hard to pass in a set of points to connect, and base the exit velocity of one segment (and entrance velocity of the next) on the angle between the segments - for basically colinear segments, maintain full speed - for perpendicular or sharper angles, drop to a stop.
Still, it's satisfying to have a little bit of Python producing tangible results:
or, if that doesn't work: https://goo.gl/photos/fmmXhqagCtpUrCLZ9
If you want to mess around with this, first buy a
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