The document describes a 3-axis drawing machine created by students. It has the goals of high precision and speed while using limited resources. The machine uses stepper motors controlled by an Arduino microcontroller to move along three axes. It was designed to draw images by converting them to binary instructions to control the motors. The machine was later improved to be made fully of metal for increased precision. It functions by drawing images pixel-by-pixel through movement of a pen along the three axes.

1. Project Name : 3-AXIS DRAWING MACHINE
Students Name : Ahmad Moharib, Mohammad Arar
Alia Ghunaim, Saja Abu Naseer, Razan Hijazeen
Supervisor Name: Dr. Samer Motawe
We had several goals for this project and the machine. The machine
would balance high precision and speed, use limited resources and
as many recycled parts as possible, and be reproducible by a
hobbyist. The software would correctly transform the several image
files into binary machine control instructions, and these instructions
would then be used to control the machine, and this advanced
feature needs more of time.
Our mechanical design consists of a wooden frame and pieces , on
which is mounted three axis of motion in a standard Cartesian
coordinate system. Each axis is driven by a stepper motor driven by a
custom motor driver circuit. The control of the stepper motors was
the primary challenge of the hardware systems, requiring circuit
design, prototyping and fabrication.
Then the wooden pieces may cause some errors and imprecise
drawing, which means that the machine must be full of metal
designed.
Engineering as a discipline often requires more integration than large
amounts of original development. In a typical project, writing new
code presents significant challenges, and the number of features
shared between projects means that it is possible to create shared
components which implement common features.
The plotter is a computer printer for printing vector graphics In the
past, plotters were used in applications such as computer, though
they have generally been replaced with wide-format conventional
printers. A plotter gives a hard copy of the output. It draws pictures
on paper using a pen. Plotters are used to print designs of ships and
machines, plans for buildings and so on.
Pen plotters print by moving a pen or other instrument across the
surface of a piece of paper. This means that plotters are vector
graphics devices, rather than raster graphics as with other printers.
Pen plotters can draw complex line art, including text, but do so
slowly because of the mechanical movement of the pens. They are
often incapable of efficiently creating a solid region of colour, but
can hatch an area by drawing a number of close, regular
lines.
Plotters offered the fastest way to
efficiently produce very large
drawings or colour high-resolution
vector-based artwork when
computer memory was very
expensive and processor power
was very limited, and other types
of printers had limited graphic
output capabilities.
Pen plotters have essentially become obsolete, and have been
replaced by large-format inkjet printers and LED toner based
printers. Such devices may still understand vector languages
originally designed for plotter use, because in many uses, they offer
a more efficient alternative to raster data.
[1] Arduino Mega 2560 microcontroller:
<http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardMega2560>.
[2] Stepper Motors:
<http://arduino.cc/en/reference/stepper>.
<http://www.instructables.com>.
<http://forum.arduino.cc >.
[3] H-Bridge Motor Driver:
<http://www.instructables.com >.
<http://www.fairchildsemi.com/an/AN/AN-3005.pdf>.
[4] Easy Driver Stepper Motor:
<http://www.schmalzhaus.com/EasyDriver/>.
We were able to produce a machine that performed well enough to
meet our goals for precision, cost, and deadline. We started early
on the hardware which allowed us to work through some of the
problems we encountered such as needing to upgrade our length
for the X and Y axis and rewiring our motor driver circuits. This
reduced the risk associated with hardware prototyping which was
by far the highest risk part of our project. We were also able to
implement all of the necessary components of our machine a
couple of weeks before our project deadline. We had to cut a few
of our extra features in order to meet our deadline, such as a
positional feedback system and an automatic tool changer, but we
were successful because we prioritized these features and worked
on the essentials first. Our success can easily be attributed to the
planning and prioritizing we did prior to beginning the project.
We left ourselves room in our schedule for unexpected delays and
began our project early. All of these factors contributed to a
successful project which began in the planning phase and ended
with a deliverable product which meets the expectations we set for
ourselves
This plotter machine designed to handle with two functions, the
first one is drawing and the second is writing, we used Arduino
Mega 2560 [1] microcontroller to program this machine, our system
consists of three bipolar stepper motors can be driven using the H-
Bridge circuit [2], these motors used in this project to move and
control the position of the slider parts of the drawing machine [3] .
The slider parts (rails) have been got from a stock CD-Drives. In each
CD-Drive there will be a sled with a readily mounted stepper motor;
this great idea economized the costs; a three stock CD-Drives will
suffice the purpose, then each sled will represent an axis in this
plotter machine.
The following figures illustrate the operation of the bipolar stepper
motor and shown the sequence that should be applied on the 4
leads of the motor [4] .
The image that will be drawn by the machine initially converted to
black and white then into binary 0's and 1's either by MATLAB or
other software.
A library or an existing module allows the use of a well developed
and tested component, which saves significant resources in the
implementation of the project. The drawback of components is the
need to integrate various potentially conflicting interfaces, and the
need to understand a complex system in order to effectively use the
component.
Components can be purchased, or may be freely available, as in the
case of Open Source software. Open Source also provides the
opportunity to contribute new features and bug fixes back in to the
community. The programs and tools we chose for this project are all
open source, and use international standards, which allowed us to
develop the features needed as possible as we can.
The purpose of this project was to make a 3-axis pen plotter as
cheaply as possibly could.
Perhaps we have never been gifted at drawing, or we don’t have the
time to do it yourself, so why not let a simple plotter machine draw
for us. This simple project is a three axis device can accurately moves
a pen to draw out anything.
The program reads binary stored in a word array in row/column
fashion and then controls the motors accordingly. We can change
what the machine prints by changing the data in the "image" array.
It's pretty basic and shouldn't be too hard to understand or change
to fit our wants better.
As shown in the following figure the plotter machine has also the
capability to write words and sentences using Hard code method
represents every single character individually, and that work in the
same way with numbers and signs.