Schlagwort: plotter

  • Transform trash into treasure with the DIY Bottle Plotter

    Transform trash into treasure with the DIY Bottle Plotter

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Manufacturers put a lot of effort into their packaging (there is an entire engineering discipline just for that) and some of it can be quite beautiful. But it usually still ends up in the landfill or, at best, in a recycling center. However, if you’re the type of person who can see the beauty in wine bottles, mason jars, and tin cans, then you can build the Bottle Plotter to transform trash into treasure.

    This machine, developed by VGaman, is a CNC pen plotter with one linear axis swapped out for a rotary axis. That means that instead of plotting on a traditional XY plane, it plots around a cylinder. The “pen” can be anything that fits in the holder and the possibilities are almost endless. Paint markers seem especially well-suited to this kind of work, but there are certainly other options that may produce interesting results on some materials.

    The Bottle Plotter is relatively affordable to build, as most of the parts are 3D-printable. The exceptions are fasteners, bearings, rods, and the electronic components. Those electronics include an Arduino UNO Rev3 board, a CNC shield, and stepper motors. VGaman’s design does include a Z axis (to move the pen closer to and further from the workpiece surface), so the machine requires three stepper motors. 

    The Arduino runs GRBL firmware and can accept any compatible G-code. The easiest way to generate that G-code is with a plugin for Inkscape, which will let users create artwork and then plot that all within one piece of software. Swap pens between toolpaths to make cool multicolor designs!

    The post Transform trash into treasure with the DIY Bottle Plotter appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • Building your own affordable SCARA plotter with Arduino

    Building your own affordable SCARA plotter with Arduino

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    Robots come in all shapes and sizes, but one of the most popular styles for industrial applications is the SCARA (Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm). These have multiple degrees of freedom, each of which rotates around the vertical Z axis. But they’re otherwise constrained, which can have advantages for certain applications. For example, they tend to have relatively high payload capacities. If you’re on a budget but want to dip your toes in, tuenhidiy’s SCARA plotter is a great way to start.

    This is a follow-up to tuenhidiy’s previous SCARA design from a couple of years ago. The new version is more robust and includes a homing feature, which is important for repeatability. This is set up as a plotter and the firmware reflects that, but it would be possible to adapt the mechanical design for other purposes. 

    To keep costs down, most of the structure is PVC pipe. Stepper motors provide actuation via GT2 timing belts and pulleys. An Arduino Mega 2560 board controls those steppers through a RAMPS 1.4 board with A4988 stepper drivers. An interface module with a 2004 LCD, rotary encoder, buzzer, and button lets the user start jobs.

    In this case, those jobs are G-code files containing the movement commands to reproduce the drawings. That works because the Arduino runs Marlin firmware (popular in the 3D printing community). The use of Marlin made homing easy and it accepts g-code that users can create with most of the standard software tools. 

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AB-XvNw8qY?start=2&feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    The post Building your own affordable SCARA plotter with Arduino appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • This pen plotter gets nervous when observed

    This pen plotter gets nervous when observed

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    The whole purpose of machine automation is to eliminate human needs and errors. A CNC machine doesn’t get tired, doesn’t need breaks, and performs a task exactly the same way every time. But what if that weren’t true? What if machines experienced human emotions and let it affect their work like we do? That’s the idea behind Devlin Macpherson’s Nervous Drawing Machine.

    By all outward appearances, this is just a standard two-axis pen plotter. Like many laser cutters and 3D printers, it has a stepper motors controlled by an Arduino board that follows G-code commands. A command might be something like “move the X axis 2mm to the right.” By chaining hundreds or thousands of those commands together, the machine can follow complex toolpaths that form letters, symbols, pictures, or anything else. Macpherson equipped the pen plotter with a continuously fed roll of paper so it can draw indefinitely.

    Under normal conditions, the machine plots row after row of little squares. A video camera points at the plotter as it works and the video feed streams through a website. And this is where things get interesting. If someone visits the website and watches the stream, the pen plotter becomes nervous about being observed. It will then start to make mistakes, like drawing scribbles instead of squares. Once the visitor leaves the website and the machine is unobserved once again, it will return to drawing perfect rows of squares.

    Macpherson built the Nervous Drawing Machine for his thesis project titled ICFWYWM (I Can’t Focus When You’re Watching Me). Like all good interactive art installations, it reflects the human condition.

    The post This pen plotter gets nervous when observed appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • Nifty cam-following plotter can draw many shapes

    Nifty cam-following plotter can draw many shapes

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Before CNC (computer numerical control) came along, automated machines utilized mechanisms like cams and tapers to act as guides. Those are physical components with precise contours meant to guide the tool, like an artist tracing lines with a pantograph. Such mechanisms are uncommon today, as CNC is far more versatile and much easier to implement. But Mr Innovative turned to those traditional techniques to build this cam-following plotter that can draw many shapes.

    A “cam” is a rotating or pivoting component in a mechanism, which has an irregular profile to control the actuation of something. Internal combustion engines, for example, often contain rotating cams that to open and close the valves at the proper times. In this case, the plotter’s cam controls the movement of the pen in the X axis. Wider portions of the cam push the pen further right, while narrower portions of the cam allow the pen to move left. A rubber band pulls the pen arm cam follower tight against a cam. The paper moves at a constant rate in the Y axis, and its speed combined with the shape of the cam determine the resulting plot shape.

    This machine will look familiar to those of you who have seen a Mr Innovative project in the past. It uses an Arduino Nano board paired with Mr Innovative’s own driver board design to control the two motors. One stepper motor controls the rotation of the cam and a second stepper motor controls the paper feed. The user can set the number of cam rotations using a Nextion touchscreen LCD panel. Mr Innovative 3D-printed the mechanical parts and mounted them to a small sheet of wood, with a standard linear rail and bearing restricting the movement of the pen arm to the X axis. It can’t draw any shape, but this machine is quite versatile and can produce quite a few interesting plots.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyz6GOAZor0?start=127&feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    The post Nifty cam-following plotter can draw many shapes appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • Automatically make masking tape labels with this Arduino-powered machine

    Automatically make masking tape labels with this Arduino-powered machine

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Arduino Team — May 12th, 2022

    Masking tape makes for a great label as its weak adhesive does not tend to leave visible residue and names can be easily sketched onto its surface, albeit quite slowly. To expedite this process, Hackaday.io user michimartini decided to design and build a machine that writes labels automatically.

    The device is essentially a drum plotter, which rotates a cylinder around an axis while moving the writing head back and forth to draw. For the X axis, michi used a basic NEMA17 stepper motor in conjunction with a CNC shield connected to an Arduino Nano. And rather than creating a custom horizontal Y axis from scratch, the machine instead utilizes a repurposed linear assembly extracted from an old DVD drive carriage, while a limit switch assists in homing the toolhead. Finally, a small servo motor holds the writing utensil so that it adequately contacts the masking tape.

    To actually print a label, the text is first entered into a specialized program running on an old Odroid-C1 single-board computer, which converts the string to a G-code path that the Grbl-based firmware can understand. After the user has verified everything looks good on the attached 3.2″ LCD screen, the Nano begins to plot the characters.

    For more details about the project, you can read its write-up here.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js4_p1S9vIM?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

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    Website: LINK

  • Plot designs onto cups with CylinDraw

    Plot designs onto cups with CylinDraw

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Arduino Team — January 18th, 2022

    Most plotters are planar, meaning they move in a single plane — though they often have the ability to move the tool up and down in the third axis. But if you convert one axis of the drawing plane into rotation, you get cylindrical plotting. That is how the rotary axis on a CNC machine works. If the tool moves in a third axis, you can even do conical plots. That’s exactly how CylinDraw makes it possible to plot directly onto cups and glasses.

    CylinDraw is an open source “cup-specific” plotter and engraver. It is a 2.5 axis machine with a rotary axis, similar to the famous EggBot egg plotter. Except instead of drawing onto the elliptical (in cross section) surface of an egg, CylinDraw plots onto the straight or sloped surface of cups, bottles, and similar objects. By equipping a Dremel or other rotary tool, you can also engrave onto a surface instead of drawing. If you do draw, the software also lets you swap pens to get a full color palette.

    An Arduino Nano board controls CylinDraw’s operation, including the stepper motors that rotate the cup and move the tool along the X axis. The frame and many of the parts, including the lathe-inspired chuck, are 3D-printed. But it is the software that really differentiates CylinDraw from similar plotters. With this software, you can automatically convert images into G-code toolpaths for the Arduino to follow for plotting.

    CylinDraw is currently available as a DIY hardware kit on Etsy if you want to build one for yourself.

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    Website: LINK

  • PVC pipe plotter prints pretty pictures

    PVC pipe plotter prints pretty pictures

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Arduino Team — January 5th, 2022

    Instructables user tuenhidiy wanted to create a new kind of CNC plotter that was unlike nearly all of the others you’ve seen. Rather than use aluminum extrusions or wood, this machine is constructed from various pieces of PVC pipe all cut to exact lengths, hence its name, the “CoreXZ Puzzle Pipe Plotter.”

    Electronics wise, the plotter runs on an Arduino Uno loaded with an instance of the ubiquitous GRBL firmware. Stacked on top was a CNC GRBL shield, which has three A4988 stepper motor drivers for delivering current to three NEMA17 motors. 

    To assemble this PVC CNC machine, tuenhidiy started by building the lower frame from a plethora of T-joints and connectors along with several inserts for attaching the aluminum rods. The plate at the bottom of the machine glides across the Y axis via a pair of aluminum rods and a set of bearings whereas the perpendicularly placed X axis is stationary and moves in a similar manner using one stepper motor placed to the side. Across from this motor is another one, which manipulates the Z axis vertically. 

    After adding a pen and connecting the motors to the shield, tuenhidiy opened the Universal Gcode Platform application and added a few different toolpaths for testing. As shown in the following video, the plotter does a great job at drawing both pictures and text accurately. For more details about this project, check out its tutorial on Instructables.

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    Website: LINK

  • Unused blackboard becomes vertical plotter

    Unused blackboard becomes vertical plotter

    Reading Time: < 1 minute

    Unused blackboard becomes vertical plotter

    Arduino Team — December 29th, 2020

    Vertical pen plotters, which work by suspending a drawing device between two variable lengths of cable, can be a lot of fun. When his kids stopped using a 780x1200mm blackboard, ‘tuenhidiy’ had the perfect surface on which to create his own!

    The project uses a pair of NEMA 17 motors to dictate the lengths of timing belt that suspend the drawing instrument, with counterweights help keep it in position. An Arduino Mega running Makelangelo firmware controls the device, using a RAMPS 1.4 board and two A4988 stepper drivers.

    It’s a nice clean build, which looks fairly straightforward to reproduce. Results, as seen in the videos below, are quite impressive!

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTYxPt15hTQ?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_8iHQgj6ss?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

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    Website: LINK

  • Enchanting images with Inky Lines, a Pi‑powered polargraph

    Enchanting images with Inky Lines, a Pi‑powered polargraph

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    A hanging plotter, also known as a polar plotter or polargraph, is a machine for drawing images on a vertical surface. It does so by using motors to control the length of two cords that form a V shape, supporting a pen where they meet. We’ve featured one on this blog before: Norbert “HomoFaciens” Heinz’s video is a wonderfully clear introduction to how a polargraph works and what you have to consider when you’re putting one together.

    Today, we look at Inky Lines, by John Proudlock. With it, John is creating a series of captivating and beautiful pieces, and with his most recent work, each rendering of an image is unique.

    The Inky Lines plotter draws a flock of seagulls in blue ink on white paper. The print head is suspended near the bottom left corner of the image, as the pen inks the wing of a gull

    An evolving project

    The project isn’t new – John has been working on it for at least a couple of years – but it is constantly evolving. When we first spotted it, John had just implemented code to allow the plotter to produce mesmeric, spiralling patterns.

    But we’re skipping ahead. Let’s go back to the beginning.

    From pixels to motor movements

    John starts by providing an image, usually no more than 100 pixels wide, to a Raspberry Pi. Custom software that he wrote evaluates the darkness of each pixel and selects a pattern of a suitable density to represent it.

    The two cords supporting the plotter’s pen are wound around the shafts of two stepper motors, such that the movement of the motors controls the length of the cords: the program next calculates how much each motor must move in order to produce the pattern. The Raspberry Pi passes corresponding instructions to two motor circuits, which transform the signals to a higher voltage and pass them to the stepper motors. These turn by very precise amounts, winding or unwinding the cords and, very slowly, dragging the pen across the paper.

    John explains,

    Suspended in-between the two motors is a print head, made out of a new 3-d modelling material I’ve been prototyping called cardboard. An old coat hanger and some velcro were also used.

    (He’s our kind of maker.)

    Unique images

    The earlier drawings that John made used a repeatable method to render image files as lines on paper. That is, if the machine drew the same image a number of times, each copy would be identical. More recently, though, he has been using a method that yields random movements of the pen:

    The pen point is guided around the image, but moves to each new point entirely at random. Up close this looks like a chaotic squiggle, but from a distance of a couple of meters, the human eye (and brain) make order from the chaos and view an infinite number of shades and a smoother, less mechanical image.

    An apparently chaotic squiggle

    This method means that no matter how many times the polargraph repeats the same image, each copy will be unique.

    A gallery of work

    Inky Lines’ website and its Instagram feed offer a collection of wonderful pieces John has drawn with his polargraph, and he discusses the different techniques and types of image that he is exploring.

    A 3 x 3 grid of varied and colourful images from inkylinespolargraph's Instagram feed

    They range from holiday photographs, processed to extract particular features and rendered in silhouette, to portraits, made with a single continuous line that can be several hundred metres long, to generative images spirograph images like those pictured above, created by an algorithm rather than rendered from a source image.

    Website: LINK