Pen Plotter From PCB Panels

January 21, 2022 by Chris Lott 6 Comments

Hacker [12344321A] has built a clever open-source pen plotter having a frame made from odd-shaped PCB panels (Chinese). It holds an ordinary drafting pen and draws on a small writing platform 8 x 8 cm square. This is barely enough space to draw a business card, depending on which country you’re from. The motion appears to be provided by DVD stepper motor head positioning assemblies, and the controller is an ESP32-based GRBL 3-axis board. User control is via WiFi and the plotter can be seen in operation being driven from the user’s smartphone (see video on the project page above).

Linear Motion Assemblies from a DVD player?

This looks like it would be an inexpensive build, and seems sturdy enough despite being literally held together by solder and paper clips. But be forewarned, the project is documented on an open-source hardware sharing site sponsored by EasyEDA called OSHWHub — the Chinese equivalent of their similar English-language OSHWLab. Hence all the notes are in Chinese, although Google translate can help here. [12344321A] provides all the engineering design files under GPL 3.0 license.

Thanks to [J. Peterson] for finding this project and bringing it to our attention via the tip line.

DIY CNC Uses Lots Of 3D-Printed Parts

November 5, 2021 by Al Williams 21 Comments

There are probably almost as many DIY CNC designs as there are DIY CNCs. And there’s nothing wrong with that! We really liked [maxvfischer’s] documentation on GitHub for a machine he made based on a design by [Ivan Miranada].

In addition to a complete bill of materials, there are Fusion 360 files and very good instructions. There are several tips that seemed like they would help even if you were building similar machines.

The machine uses HTD5M belts instead of the more prevalent lead screw design. Everything slides on MGN12H slides. There are detailed photographs covering not just the tricky parts but even how to extend the stepper motor wires.

The original design used a Makita RT0700C for the spindle, but [max] couldn’t find one of those, but found a similar version with the same dimensions.

The only tip we would add is to be careful using taps in a handheld drill. (Don’t ask us how we know that.) A drill press is safer, or you can even use a tap handle and do it the old-fashioned way.

The firmware is grbl on an Arduino, and there are complete instructions for setting that up, too. We were amazed at the number of pictures included along with the detailed description. If you were ever afraid you couldn’t duplicate a CNC project, this might be the one to tackle.

There are, of course, cheaper and simpler options with fewer capabilities. Some are even almost free courtesy of the local dumpster.

Automatic Coil Winder Gets It Done With Simple Hardware And Software

July 25, 2021 by Dan Maloney 11 Comments

We’ve grown to expect seeing mechatronics project incorporate a standard complement of components, things like stepper motors, Arduinos, lead screws, timing belts and pulleys, and aluminum extrusions. So when a project comes along that breaks that mold, even just a little, we sit up and take notice.

Departing somewhat from this hardware hacking lingua franca is [tuenhidiy]’s automatic coil winder, which instead of aluminum extrusions and 3D-printed connectors uses simple PVC pipe and fittings as a frame. Cheap, readily available, and easily worked, the PVC does a fine job here, and likely would on any project where forces are low and precision isn’t critical. The PVC frame holds two drive motors, one to wind the wire onto a form and one to drive a lead screw that moves the form back and forth. An Arduino with a CNC shield takes care of driving the motors, and the G-code needed to do so is generated by a simple spreadsheet that takes into account the number turns desired, the number of layers, the dimensions of the spool, and the diameters of the wire. The video below shows the machine going through its paces, with pretty neat and tidy results.

Being such a tedious task, this is far from the first coil winder we’ve seen. Some adhere to the standard design language, some take off in another direction entirely, but they’re all instructive and fun to watch in action.

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CNC Scroll Saw Add-On Cuts Beautiful Wooden Spirals

March 25, 2021 by Dan Maloney 23 Comments

If there’s one thing that woodworkers have always been good at, it’s coming up with clever jigs and work-holding solutions. Most jigs, however, are considerably simpler and more static than this CNC-controlled scroll saw add-on that makes cool wooden spirals a snap.

As interesting as the products of this setup are, what we like about this is the obvious care and craftsmanship [rschoenm] put into making what amounts to a hybrid between a scroll saw and a lathe. Scroll saws are normally used to make narrow-kerf cuts in thin, delicate materials, often with complicated designs using very tight radius turns. In this case, though, stock is held between centers on the lathe-like carriage. The jig uses a linear slide driven by a stepper and a lead screw to translate the workpiece perpendicular to the scroll saw blade while a geared headstock rotates it. Starting with the blade inserted into a through-hole, the saw slowly cuts a beautiful nested spiral down the length of the workpiece. An Uno, a GRBL shield, and some stepper drivers let a little G-code control the two axes of the jig.

The video below shows it in action; things do get a bit wobbly as the cut progresses, but in general the jig works wonderfully and results in some lovely pieces. At first we thought these would purely be objets d’art, but then we thought about this compression screw grinder for DIY injection molding machines and realized these wooden screws look pretty similar.

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Teensy Controller For Powerful CNCs

November 11, 2020 by Adam Zeloof 42 Comments

It seems like every year, it gets a bit easier to build your own CNC. From the Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) project of the early 1990s to Arduinos running Grbl in the late 2000s, the open source community has moved ahead in leaps and bounds. Grbl is at its core firmware that interprets G-code and commands stepper motors, usually to move a tool head in such a way as to make something. Tons of systems have been built around it, including early Makerbot printers.

Its also spawned a plethora of other projects (the Grbl GitHib repo has 2,400 forks!), including a 32-bit flavor called grblHAL. This version is at the heart of a fantastic CNC controller board developed by [Phill Barrett]. Ditching the Arduino for a more powerful Teensy 4.1, [Phil]’s controller supports full five-axis control, variable frequency drive spindles, dust extractor control, and flood and mist coolant control. It can run at blazing stepping rates of up to 160 kHz (standard Grbl on an Arduino hits 30 kHz) and can be assembled with either a USB or Ethernet interface.

There’s no shortage of interesting Grbl-based machines out there — including a revamped Atari plotter and a three-axis rotary CNC (shameless plug for the author’s own project) but it’s always exciting to see new hardware developed that will undoubtedly find its way into the next generation of a family of projects. We can’t wait to see what comes next!

Mini CNC Mill Goes Horizontal To Reuse CD Drives

August 25, 2020 by Dan Maloney 22 Comments

Here at Hackaday, we pride ourselves on bringing you the freshest of hacks, preferably as soon as we find out about them. Thanks to the sheer volume of cool hacks out there, though, we do miss one occasionally, like this e-waste horizontal CNC mill that we just found out about.

Aptly called the “CDCNC” thanks to its reliance on cast-off CD drive mechanisms for its running gear, [Paul McClay]’s creation is a great case study on what you can do without buying almost any new parts. It’s also an object lesson in not getting caught in standard design paradigms. Where most CNC mills mount the spindle vertically, [Paul] tilted the whole thing 90 degrees so the spindle lies on its side. Moving it back and forth on a pair of CD drive mechanisms is far easier than fighting gravity for control, and as a bonus the X- and Y-axes have minimal loading too. The video below shows the mill in action, and it’s easy to see how the horizontal arrangement really helps make this junk bin build into something special.

We think [Paul] did a great job of thinking around the problem with this build, and we’re glad he took the time to tip us off. Apparently it was the upcoming CNC on the Desktop Hack Chat that moved him to let us know about this build. Here’s hoping he drops by for the chat and shares his experience with us.

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The Mother(board) Of All CNC Controllers

July 17, 2020 by Dan Maloney 38 Comments

If you’re building a CNC machine from scratch, the number of decisions you have to make is nearly boundless. Metal or wood construction? Welded or bolted? Timing belts or lead screws? And even once the mechanical bits are sorted, you still face a universe of choices in terms of control electronics. That’s where something like this modular CNC controller could really prove to be a game-changer.

The idea behind [Barton Dring]’s latest creation started with his port of GRBL to the ESP32. In fact, the current controller bears a strong family resemblance to his version 1.0 dev board, with a few conspicuous and intriguing additions. First, everything is modular — the main PCB is basically a motherboard with little more than a 5-volt power supply and some housekeeping electronics, plus a lot of headers. There’s support for up to six channels of steppers, either directly on the board with Pololu-style modules or as external drivers using pluggable screw terminal blocks. There’s also room for five IO modules; the current collection of modules includes a four-channel switch input, a relay output, an RS-485 module and a 0-10-V interface for talking to a variable frequency drive (VFD) spindle controllers, and buffered 5-V output module. The best part is that the IO module spec is completely open, so designing custom modules should be a snap.

The video below gives a quick tour of the controller. We’re really impressed with the thought that went into this, and we’ll venture a guess that having something like this available is going to kickstart a lot of stalled CNC machine projects. We can think of one shop that finally lost its last excuse for making the move.

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