[Robottini] released plans for his robot, Cartesio, that is essentially an Arduino-controlled plotter made to create artwork. The good part about Cartesio is the low cost. [Robottini] claims it cost about $60 to produce.
The robot has an A3-size drawing bed and is practically the XY part of a 3D printer. In fact, most of the parts are 3D printed and the mechanical parts including M8 smooth rod. LM8UU bearings, and GT2 belts and pulleys. If you’ve built a 3D printer, those parts (or similar ones) should sound familiar.
The Arduino uses GRBL to drive the motors from GCODE. [Robottini] has three different workflows to produce drawings from applications like Inkscape. You can see some of the resulting images below.
We’ve covered GRBL before, and it is the heart of many motion control projects. If you’d rather draw on something less permanent, you might try this project.
Yeap !! cool stuff .
If it could accept HPGL it would be a real plotter, just like the one I used with my Apple ][.
But now you can emulate the Apple ][ in the Arduino plotter controller itself…
(and a little googling tells me there actually exists a HPGL>Gcode converter, and a use case for it. wow.)
Put a marker on it and use it for PCBs?
The Cartesio has been around for a few years and this isn’t it.
This is: http://reprap.org/wiki/Cartesio