Draw on bottles using a CNC plotter made from old printer rollers and other scraps

To label used bottles that would otherwise go to waste, “tuenhidiy” created a CNC plotter that itself consists mostly of scraps!

The machine’s X and Z axes are formed out of a pair of old CD/DVD players, but instead of a traditional Y axis, it actuates two printer rollers to turn a bottle forwards or backwards. This allows the marking pen to be placed in just the right axial position, while still being very similar to a fully Cartesian (XYZ) plotter controls-wise.

Everything is powered by GRBL running on an Arduino Uno, which interfaces with its four steppers via a CNC shield and A4988 driver modules. Build info is available in tuenhidiy’s write-up, and you also check it out in the video below.