garageFab.cc

Plotter is a simple contraption to test the belt drive capabilities of theContraptor set. It is basically a 2-axis Cartesian. It can draw, though only in a continuous line - it needs a smarter head with pen up/down mechanism to actually be a plotter. Other heads can be used, like a vinyl/paper cutter - which is the plan for the Paper Prototyper. Maybe a fine point Sharpie can be used to draw tracks on PCBs for etching.

The plotter in the video is the older version built with the old design of linear motion components. The latest version is in the source - with new linear motion components and bigger work area (17" by 11" vs old 13" by 10"). The top speed is 300 IPM, however at this speed, the curves or diagonal lines consisting of small movements get wiggly. At 50 IPM is everything looks fine though.

It uses Arduino with Gcode interpreter firmware and little Python script which sends Gcode .NC files to Arduino over USB/Serial.

G-code from text was generated with shareware TTFtoDXF and Gcode2000 apps.

Most recent update on this: /tags/plotter

Source Files 

http://contraptor.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/contraptor/trunk/contraptions/xy-plotter/