The Pen Plotter
To learn more about Gcode (code that is sent to the CNC machine to tell it what to do). Our Professor, gave us a project to build a little table top CNC machine called the Pen Plotter.
What is does it you design and drawing in Fusion360, put in the manufacturing settings for the plasma cutter. Post process the design. The upload it into UGGS (the firmware that makes the pen plotter run).
The Pen Plotter is made out three stepper motors, a servo motor, two limit switches, an Arduino, and a CNC shield.
The limit switches tell it where home is. Where X and Y are zero.
Two of the stepper motors run the Y axis (up and down)
One stepper motor runs the X axis (side to side)
The servo acts as the Z axis controller, lowering the pen on to the surface you want to draw on.
The Arduino is what runs the firmware for the Pen Plotter
The CNC shield turns the Arduino into a CNC microcontroller and helps run the Pen Plotter without burning the Arduino out.
Here are a couple testing/drawing images to show that it works.
Below are a couple of videos showing the Pen Plotter actually drawing. Both of these videos are based solely off of raw Gcode, no design in fusion360, just straight up Gcode.
