stl to g-code

Hi, I would like to build a 3d printer for my senior project design using an ramps 1.4 controlled by matlab. however all the searching that I have done so far I was unable to find any info on how to control the ramps via matlab.

I was wondering if anyone has any experience or idea if this could be done?

And is it possible to convert stl file to g-code?

Thank you Vincent

[Karim Yahyaoui]

Hi Vincent, I would like to know if you found anything about this. Thank you.

Answer 1

[Thomas Llewellyn-Jones]

Controlling a Ramps board or similar is a case of creating a serial object in Matlab and then simply writing g-code line by line to the controller, eg.

serialobject=serial('COM1','BaudRate',250000);
fopen(serialobject);

Replace 'COM1' and 250000 with the relevant values for your board port (which can be found in device manager or through INSTRFIND) and baudrate. After this to send g-code commands just use fprintf,

fprintf(serialobject,'G1 X10 \n');

Dont forget the new line terminator or the Ramps board wont recognise the end of the command. In terms of generating gcode files it is best to use an available slicer (Cura, Slic3r, MatterControl etc) or write a script for your own purposes. Hope this helps.