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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Inspired by the traditional thermal printers, the PyroGraph is an experimental plotter that uses a soldering iron to burn images onto paper. Created by the team of Bjørn Karmann, Lars Kaltenbach and Nicolas Armand, PyroGraph works by analyzing any picture and then converting it into dots that are scorched onto a piece of paper with a 450 °C tip. The time of contact between the iron […]
Nice Grasshopper-to-Arduino plotter hack from FablabTorino maker Pietro Leoni, a collabotator at Carlo Ratti Associati studio in Turin. We’d love to see code & sketches online soon, as much as a second edition of the plotter.
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