neopi - Raspberry Pi/touch screen interface for sending designs to a Tajima Neo Embroidery machine

License: GNU GPLv2

Portions derived or inspired by https://code.google.com/archive/p/pyembroidery/ (mirrored on https://github.com/OSUblake/pyembroidery?)

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This sends commands to a piece of machinery capable of causing injury, this works for me. It's up to you to determine if it works for you.

Tajima NEO(TEJT-C1501c) embroidery machines are made for production environments, they are nearly bulletproof for home/hobby use. Mechanically rugged, but the original interface shows it's age..

• Floppy via undocumented pinout/connector(mini centronics)
  • want sneakernet, but USB, a tajima speciifc gotek virtual floppy drive is $140(shipped)
    These require virtual floppy images on your USB, etc, still Sneakernet
• RS232 - 9 pin serial(at 9600, or 38400)
  This interface is supported by commercial applications/design spoolers, but the protocol is undocumented

What you need

• Tajima NEO(TEJT-1501C) or equivalent(I believe Toyota ESP9000 is the same machine)
• Raspberry Pi 3b with raspbian distro installed
• Touch screen that works with pygame(X windows), tested with 3.5"(480x320) Kuman/Waveshare, (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CNJVG8K/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1)[amazon]
• Linux supported USB to (DB9) serial with support for hardware flow control + a null modem cable/adapter, tested with a prolific chipset
• Access to a lasercutter and a bit of hardware(if you want a case around it)

Erratic issues with the touchscreen when using tslib/SDL/pygame led me to use this in Xwindows(with no window manager) Tslib calibration worked perfectly, but pygame mouse positioning events left a lot to be desired

Files

neopi_case.dxf - CAD file suitable for laser cutting a case from 1/8 plywood
neopi.py - awfully written pygame interface for neo
neopi.cfg - config file for changing serial ports, file locations, displays, etc
samplefiles - simple samples to "test" the app

Setup

Install software

apt-get install python-dev libsdl-image1.2-dev libsdl-mixer1.2-dev libsdl-ttf2.0-dev   libsdl1.2-dev libsmpeg-dev python-numpy subversion libportmidi-dev ffmpeg libswscale-dev libavformat-dev libavcodec-dev  xinput-calibrator build-deb python-pygame

Copy configs from this repo to X directories

cp 40-libinput.conf /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/.
cp 99-calibration.conf  /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/.

Install LCD overlay

echo "installing LCD config tool from https://github.com/goodtft/LCD-show"
git clone https://github.com/goodtft/LCD-show
cd LCD-show
chmod 755 LCD35-show ; ./LCD35-show

Edit the /boot/config update the overlay to rotate the display

dtoverlay=tft35a,rotate=270

Reboot

calibrate the display

export TSLIB_TSDEVICE=/dev/input/event0
export TSLIB_FBDEVICE=/dev/fb1
ts_calibrate

Follow calibration prompts, this will update /etc/pointercal, your values will vary

8478 111 -2023240 -40 -5537 22244074 65536

clone/configure

clone this repo
edit neopi.cfg to suit, minimum change the directory where designs are stored
copy/mount DST/dst files to the defined directory
start neopi.py
choose a file to send, it will show pending..
select input from PC on NEO control panel, it will be sent to the serial port

TODO

Send designs to machine without control panel interaction.

If you ignore serial flow control, you can get the machine to move(in a unexpected and potentially harmful way!) There are commercial programs that can do this, not sure what it takes.
DIP switch setting realted to 2 way communication(DSW2#8) may be the key

Scrap the whole idea and extend octoprint to support embroidery.