Thingiverse
ExtruDraw Extrusion-based Plotter by pittance
by Thingiverse
Last crawled date: 5 years, 4 months ago
A plotter/drawing machine that uses 20x40mm and 20x20mm aluminium extrusion for both structure and linear guides.
I've tested the design up to A1 but it's probably best A3 or A2 size - after testing in A1 size I've now cut it down to a bit bigger than A3 size (old Ikea kitchen cupboard shelf). Also: you can learn from my experience & DON'T USE A PLYWOOD BACKPLATE, it's too uneven and has caused me problems - go with MDF instead.
I use EiBotBoard drive electronics because I have an EggBot, you may use this or any other system to drive 2x NEMA 17 stepper motors and one 9g servo. There is an EiBotBoard alternative linked below if you want to use that system, there are other Arduino-based options but I haven't used them. I prefer the EiBotBoard driver because the Inkscape driver plugin that Evil Mad Scientist created for their AxiDraw will work with it with a little re-configuration and I find this to be very intuitive and flexible.
I've added the OpenScad file now that it's mostly working, it should be parametric but I really wouldn't trust this. Near the top of the file there are two sections for assembly and printing; uncomment what you want from each as you want it. Each separate part is a separate module. Common variables are right at the top with some comments. It's probably not very easy to read - sorry about that.
These files are not quite the ones I printed for the A1 machine, many are slightly changed (and hopefully improved e.g. hole in the upper part of the carriage to make feeding belts through less of a pain than I had to suffer through).
The latest version of the machine has metal pulleys for the steppers, central belt guides and the return pulley at the pen end. Printed pulleys worked OK but I think that metal versions are more accurate and are quite cheap so I've removed the printable pulleys from the files - they are still in the OpenScad file if you want to print them but you'll need to render them yourself.
I have recently improved the pen lift and as this is much, much better than the previous version so I've updated the files to include this version.
I've tested the design up to A1 but it's probably best A3 or A2 size - after testing in A1 size I've now cut it down to a bit bigger than A3 size (old Ikea kitchen cupboard shelf). Also: you can learn from my experience & DON'T USE A PLYWOOD BACKPLATE, it's too uneven and has caused me problems - go with MDF instead.
I use EiBotBoard drive electronics because I have an EggBot, you may use this or any other system to drive 2x NEMA 17 stepper motors and one 9g servo. There is an EiBotBoard alternative linked below if you want to use that system, there are other Arduino-based options but I haven't used them. I prefer the EiBotBoard driver because the Inkscape driver plugin that Evil Mad Scientist created for their AxiDraw will work with it with a little re-configuration and I find this to be very intuitive and flexible.
I've added the OpenScad file now that it's mostly working, it should be parametric but I really wouldn't trust this. Near the top of the file there are two sections for assembly and printing; uncomment what you want from each as you want it. Each separate part is a separate module. Common variables are right at the top with some comments. It's probably not very easy to read - sorry about that.
These files are not quite the ones I printed for the A1 machine, many are slightly changed (and hopefully improved e.g. hole in the upper part of the carriage to make feeding belts through less of a pain than I had to suffer through).
The latest version of the machine has metal pulleys for the steppers, central belt guides and the return pulley at the pen end. Printed pulleys worked OK but I think that metal versions are more accurate and are quite cheap so I've removed the printable pulleys from the files - they are still in the OpenScad file if you want to print them but you'll need to render them yourself.
I have recently improved the pen lift and as this is much, much better than the previous version so I've updated the files to include this version.