instructables

Arduino CNC Plotter (DRAWING MACHINE)

by MegaDAS

Hey guys! I Hope you already enjoyed my previous instructable "How to make your own Arduino training platform"
and you are ready for a new one, as usual I made this tutorial to guide you step by step while making this kind of
super amazing low cost electronic projects which is the "CNC plotter machine" known also as "CNC drawing" or
just "Arduino CNC machine". ^_^

I found lots of tutorial accross the web that explains how to make a CNC Plotter, but with the lack of information it
was a bit difficult to make such machine, thats the reason why I've decided to start this instructable where I will
show you in details how to easily make your own drawing machine.

This project is so handy to make specially after getting the customized PCB that we’ve ordered from JLCPCB

to improve the appearance of our machine and also there is enough documents and codes in this guide to allow
you create your machine easily. We've made this project in just 5 days only, just three days to get all the needed
parts and finish the hardware making and the assemble, then 2 days to prepare the code and start some
adjustments. Before starting let’s see first

What you will learn from this instructable:

1. Making the right hardware selection for your project depending on its functionalities
2. Prepare the circuit diagram to connect all the choosen components
3. Assemble all the project parts (mechanical and electronic assembly)
4. Scaling of the machine balance
5. Start manipulating the system

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojkWbfhy7gg

Arduino CNC Plotter (DRAWING MACHINE): Page 1

Step 1: What Is a Plotter Machine
Since I've made this instructable for beginners, I
should explain in details first what is the drawing
machine and how it works!
As it is defined in wikipedia, CNC stands for
Computer numerical control, a machine which is a
computer-controlled structure that receives
instructions through a serial port sent from a
computer and moves its actuators depending on the
received instructions. Most of these machines are
stepper motor based machines which includes
stepper motors in theme axis.
Step 2: Stepper Motor Is the Main Actuator
A stepper motor or step motor or stepping motor is a
brushless DC electric motor that divides a full rotation
into a number of equal steps. The motor's position
can then be commanded to move and hold at one of
these steps without any position sensor for
feedback(an open-loop controller), as long as the
motor is carefully sized to the application in respect to
torque and speed.
First verse, from where to get the stepper motors for
our project, well easy, just grab an old DVD reader
like the one in picture 1 above, I’ve got two for 2
dollars, than all what you need to do is disassemble it
to extract the stepper motor and its support, as it
Arduino CNC Plotter (DRAWING MACHINE): Page 2
Another word to mentioned "axis", yes, each CNC
machine has a defined number of axis that will be
controlled by the computer program.
In our case the CNC plotter that we made is a double
axis machine "details in picture 1" that has a small
stepper motors in its axis "stepper in picture 2" these
steppers will move an active tray and make it move in
a double axis plan to create the drawing design using
a drawing pen. The pen will be holded and released
using a third engine in our structure which will be a
servo motor.
shows picture 3, we will need two of them.
Once you get your motors from the DVD reader, you
should make them ready to use by identifing the
motor coils ends. Each stepper motor has two coils
and using a multimeter you can identify the coil ends
by measuring the resistance between the motor pins
connector "as show picture 5" and for each coil it
should be about 10Ohm measured. After identifing
the motor coils just solder some wires to control the
motor through them "see picture 6"
Arduino CNC Plotter (DRAWING MACHINE): Page 3
Step 3: The Circuit Diagram
The heart of our machine is an arduino Nano Dev
board that will control the movement of each actuator
depending on the instruction received from the
computer, in order to control these stepper motors we
need a stepper motor driver to control the speed and
direction of each actuator.
In our case we will use an L293D H bridge motor
driver "see picture 3" which will receive the motor
command sent from arduino through its inputs and
control the stepper motors using its outputs.
Arduino CNC Plotter (DRAWING MACHINE): Page 4
in order to connect all the needed parts together with
our Arduino board I've made the circuit diagram that
shows picture 1 where you should follow the same
connection for both stepper motors and the servo
motor.
The picture 2 explain in details through a schematic
the circuit diagram and how it should be the links
between the Arduino and the other components, for
sure you can adjust these links depending on your
needs.
Step 4: The PCB Making (Produced by JLCPCB)
About JLCPCB
JLCPCB (Shenzhen JIALICHUANG Electronic
Technology Development Co., Ltd.), is the largest
PCB prototype enterprise in China and a high-tech
manufacturer specializing in quick PCB prototype and
small-batch PCB production. With over 10 years of
experience in PCB manufacturing, JLCPCB has more
than 200,000 customers at home and abroad, with
over 8,000 online orders of PCB prototyping and
small quantity PCB production per day. The annual
production capacity is 200,000 sq.m. for various of 1-
layer, 2-layer or multi-layer PCBs. JLC is a
professional PCB manufacturer featured of large
scale, well equipment, strict management and
superior quality.
Talking electronics
After making the circuit diagram I transformed it into a
PCB design to produce it "see picture 5,6,7,8", in
Arduino CNC Plotter (DRAWING MACHINE): Page 5
order to produce the PCB, I have chosed JLCPCB
the best PCB suppliers and the cheapest PCB
providers to order my circuit. with them reliable
platform all what I need to do is some simple clicks to
upload the gerber file and set some parameters like
the PCB thickness color and quantity, then I’ve paid
just 2 Dollars to get my PCB after five days only. As it
shows "the picture 1,2,3,4" of the related schemtic.
Related download files
You can get the Circuit (PDF) file from here. As you
can see in the pictures above the PCB is very well
manufactured and I’ve got the same PCB design that
we’ve made for our main board and all the labels and
logos are there to guide me during the soldering
steps. You can also download the Gerber file for this
circuit from here in the case you want to place an
order for the same circuit design.
Arduino CNC Plotter (DRAWING MACHINE): Page 6
Arduino CNC Plotter (DRAWING MACHINE): Page 7
 Download
https://www.instructables.com/ORIG/F3I/68VM/JQMO6ZMR/F3I68VMJQMO6ZMR.zip
…

Download
https://www.instructables.com/ORIG/FGV/MO4O/JQMO6ZOF/FGVMO4OJQMO6ZOF.pdf
…

Step 5: Design a Support for Your Machine!

In order to bring a better appearance for our machine
I decided to designe these three parts "see picture 1"
using Solidworks software, these parts will help us
to assemble the DVD readers together, I’ve got the
DXF files of these parts and with the help of my
friends in FabLab Tunisia I’ve got the designed parts
produces using a CNC laser cutting machine, we
used a 5mm MDF wood material to get these parts
produced. Yet another designe which is the drawing
pen holder, I've got it through a 3D printing process.
And you can download all the related files from the
links down below.

Download
https://www.instructables.com/ORIG/FKX/M4HT/JQMOBDS6/FKXM4HTJQMOBDS6.rar
…

Download
https://www.instructables.com/ORIG/F6S/H45W/JQMOBDYE/F6SH45WJQMOBDYE.rar
…

Arduino CNC Plotter (DRAWING MACHINE): Page 8

Step 6: Ingredients

Now let’s review the necessary components that we need for this project, I'm using an Arduino Nano as mentioned
above, it will be the heart of our machine. The project also include two stepper motors with them drivers ICs and a
servo motor. You will find bellow some recommended amazon links for the appropriate items

In order to create this kind of projects we will need :

The PCB that we’ve ordered from JLCPCB

An Arduino nano : https://amzn.to/2SDSTgO
2 x L293D H bridge driver : https://amzn.to/2C6PWyb
2 x IC sockets DIP 16 pin : https://amzn.to/2RAyCvu
1 x IC socket DIP : https://amzn.to/2SPXMTW
SIL and Screw header connectors : https://amzn.to/2Ril1JC
1 x servo motor SG90 : https://amzn.to/2VEsAZF
2 x DVD readers :
The 3D printed parts
The laser cutted parts
Some screw for the assembly
The pen that we've got as gift from JLCPCB or any other drawing pen

9
12

10 11
8
3
2 1 4 6 7

1. PCB from JLCPCB

2. Arduino nano
3. ICs DIP sockets
4. L293D
5. SIL header connector
6. Screw header connectors
7. Servomotor
8. 3D printed parts
9. Laser cutted parts
10. DVD ROM
11. Screw for the assembly
12. drawing Pen

Arduino CNC Plotter (DRAWING MACHINE): Page 9

Step 7: Electronic Assembly and Test

We move now to the soldering assembly of all the electronic components. As usual you will find on the top silk
layer a label of each component indicating its placement on the board and this way you will be 100% sure that you
will not make any soldering mistakes.

Make some tests

After soldering the electronic components "see picture 1", I screw the DVD reader to the X axis plate and I did the
same for the main board than I placed the motor wires in them screw header to make a simple test using a stepper
motor test code "see picture 2". As you see the stepper moves fine and we are on the right path.

/************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
* - Author : BELKHIR Mohamed *
* - Profession : (Electrical Ingineer) MEGA DAS owner *
* - Main purpose : Industrial Application *
* - Copyright (c) holder : All rights reserved *
* - License : BSD 2-Clause License *
* - Date : 20/04/2017 *
* ***********************************************************************************************************************************************************************/

/*********************************** NOTE **************************************/

// Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
// modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

// * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this
// list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

// * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice,

// this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation
// and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

// THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS"
// AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
// IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED

/*

*/
#include // Include the stepper Motor librarie
const int stepPerRotation = 20; // Number of steps by turn. Standard value for CD/DVD

// Indicate X axis stepper motor Pins

Stepper myStepperX(stepPerRotation, 8,9,10,11);

void setup()
{
myStepperX.setSpeed(100); // Stepper motor speed
myStepperX.step(100);
delay(1000);
myStepperX.step(-100);
delay(1000);
}

void loop() {}

Arduino CNC Plotter (DRAWING MACHINE): Page 10

Step 8: Assembly of the Mechanical Parts
We continue the assembly of our structure by
screwing the second stepper motor to the Y axis plat
"see picture 1". Once preparing the Y axis you will
have both axis ready to create the double axis plan
that we spoke about it in the first step "see picture 2".
all what you need to do is placing the two axis in a
90° "see picture 3".
Making of the pen holder
We prepare the pen holder by placing a small axe
into a spring to hold the 3D printed pen holder and
Arduino CNC Plotter (DRAWING MACHINE): Page 11
then we screw the servo motor to its placement "see
picture 4", the pen holder is ready so we stick it to the
carriage of the Y axis using some hot glue or any
other means to make it able to slide on the Y axis
following the stepper motor steps "see picture 5",
then we stick our active plat to the carriage of the X
axis "see picture 6", and we finish with the screwing
of the engines wires to them connectors on the board.
After some arrangement, we have our mechanical
design ready for the action 'see picture 7'.
Arduino CNC Plotter (DRAWING MACHINE): Page 12
Step 9: Software Part
Moving to the software part, we will combine three
softwares in order to turn the machine alive, I've
made a short description in the first picture, we will
make our design using Inkscape software that
produces a gcode file needed for our machine and for
sure in order to understand the gcode instructions the
machine should have its own code that we will be
uploaded using Arduino IDE software, the last part is
how to link the machine’s code to the gcode file, this
is performed by processing software.
The first step is uploading the arduino board scketch
that you can download from the link down below and
do not forget to update the stepper motors pin
according to your shcematic.
Note : if you are using the same schematic as ours
so the code will be working fine and no need to
change anything in it.
Preparing the Gcode 'Inkscape'
Then we move to Inkscape and we adjust some
parameters 'see picture 1' like the paper frames and
units 'see picture 2' , we prepare our design and save
Arduino CNC Plotter (DRAWING MACHINE): Page 13
it on MakerBat unicon format 'see picture 5,6', if this
format is not available on your Inkscape version, you
can place an add-on to have it, once you click on
(save) a new window will appear for Gcode file
parameters adjustments, all what you need to do is
following the same adjustment as ours and everything
will be fine just follow 'picture 7,8,9' then you set
these parameters this way, and you have your gCode
file.
Note : you can't save the Gcode file under the
required format if you are using an Inkscape
version higher than version 0.48.5
Linking the machine to the Gcode file 'Processing 3'
Moving to processing software, it is a bit like the
Arduino IDE 'see picture 10' so you should open the
'CNC program' file That you can download from the
link down below and just run it 'see picture 11', a
second window will appear, you need to press the
latter p in you keyboard to select the COM port of the
machine 'see picture 12', and press the latter g to
select the desired gcode file, once you select it the
machine will directly start drawing.
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 Download
https://www.instructables.com/ORIG/FF4/N6QR/JQMOFQ2R/FF4N6QRJQMOFQ2R.ino
…

Step 10: Test and Results

And here we are the time is here for some test, once
uploaded the Gcode file the machine start drawing
and I really liked the LED flickering that shows the
sequences sent to each stepper motor.
The designs are very well done, and you can see
guys the project is amazing and easy to make as
well,
rel="nofollow">how to make your own arduino
training platform". And subscribe to our YouTube
channel for more awesome videos.
One last thing, make sure that you are doing
electronics everyday
It was BEE MB from MEGA DAS see you next time

Don’t forget to watch our previous project which is “

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