Introduction: BACK TO BASIC – MINI CNC PLOTTER

There are many projects and tutorials cognate to recycle retired CD/DVD players into a mini CNC Plotter settled happening Arduino.

I have become overly solicitous with complex details or new things, and now I should concentrate on basic, dolabrate and important ideas. Acquiring back to basics, to start learning CNC, today I'd look-alike to share how to easily build your own cheap Arduino Miniskirt CNC Plotter. With my version, I exploited the spring depart of stapler as a briny component for pen repeal. During the process of doing this, I have referenced from many sources, studied & time-tested to clarify some point hard to grasp.

Let's acquiring started.

Step 1: THINGS WE NEED

Main components:

        • 1pcs x CNC Shield V4.
        • 1pcs x Arduino Nano.
        • 2pcs x Stepper Motive Number one wood A4988.
        • 2pcs x Archaic CD/Videodisk Players.
        • 1pcs x Servo Motorial SG90.
        • 1 meter x 8P Rainbow Typewriter ribbon Cable.
        • 1pcs x Aluminium Angle 20 x 20 x 1.4mm - Length 120mm.
        • 1pcs x Stapler.
        • 1pcs x Power Supply 12V.
        • 1pcs x Aluminum Flexible Shaft Mating, Inward Hole Size: 5mm x 8mm (or 8mm x 8mm).
        • 2pcs x Atomic number 29 Brass Pillars L-10mm.
        • 2pcs x Copper Brass Pillars L-5mm.
        • 2pcs x Bolts + Nuts + Washers M4 x 50mm.
        • 3pcs x Bolts + Haywire + Washers M4 x 25mm.
        • 2pcs x Bolts + Nuts + Washers M4 x 20mm.
        • 1pcs x Bolts + Nuts + Washers M2 x 40mm.
        • 2pcs x Bolts + Nuts + Washers M2 x 5mm.
        • Some small cable ties.

        Tools:

            • Sawing Machine.
            • Drilling Machine.
            • Hand Sub.
            • Hot Glue Gun.
            • Soldering Auto.

            Softwares:

            • MIGRBL microcode.
            • INKSCAPE version 0.48.5.
            • INKSCAPE Knot-GRBL Annexe.
            • Universal Gcode Sender.

            Step 2: IDEAS

            The idea to chassis a miniskirt CNC plotter is simple: use up two old stepper motor-controlled CD/DVD player, one is used as a plotting show u that moving forward and backswept - Y axes, and go up the some other vertically on that to furnish left and opportune movement - X axes. Then we mount a RC servo to X axes to lift the pen up and down during plotting- Z axes.

            Step 3: Videodisc/Standard candle Drive in High stepper MOTORS

            • DVD/CD drive hoofer motor specifications

            IT is difficult to find the exact specifications of these steppers. I base the specs of DVD/CD stepper motorial which is similar to mine on the internet. The important parameters are highlighted in orange.

            hypertext transfer protocol://World Wide Web.oncetop.com/Products/OTSM15L013Stepperm...

            Motor character: 2-phase angle 4-wire system
            Step angel: 18°
            Potential dro: 5V
            Opposition: 14Ω
            Stage: 2 - 2
            Drive mode: Bipolar

            Max.starting frequency:

            		900pps
            Max.slew speed: 1200pps
            Holding torsion: 40
            Lead screw major diameter: Φ3
            Lead screw lead pitch: 3
            Size of motor outer diameter: 15mm
            • DVD/CD drive hoofer drive dismantling

            I tried to open a broken stepper motor to control the details inwardly. You can check the picture below:

            The stepper run at 5VDC, we should measure 2 coils resistance by a multimeter to check whether it is in good consideration.

            I had 2 different types of DVD/CD players, one was used for the X axis with whorl resistivity of stepper motorial 14Ω and the other was used for the Y axis of rotation with 10 Ω coil electric resistance.

            Footprint 4: CNC SHIELD V4.0

            CNC Shield V4.0 has 3 slots on the PCB board for high stepper motor drive modules and same slot for Arduino Nano. It lav drive 3 stepper motors by Arduino Nano. CNC Shield V4.0 has some GPIO pins available for connecting to different modules, like limit switching, as well as, I2C interface operating theater serial communication. Power for 3 stepper motor drive modules and Nano board is supplied via an external power jack (DC 12V).

            I bought the CNC shield V4 with bargain-priced price from Red China. Through references, I found that I had to correct some ironware and software program in order to exercise GRBL microcode and set up the micro-steps mode for A4988. I have applied the methods beneath:

            https://www.instructables.com/id/Situate-Cloned-Arduin...

            A. Fixing THE Computer hardware:

            The jumpers to configure the number of micro-steps are all connected to GND while they need pulling up to VCC. The small-step value is fixed at low levels and always put stepper driver in full step solving.

            • BOTTOM VIEW

            • Top of the inning Horizon

            B. FIX THE SOFTWARE:

            The pins connected to the "STEP" and "DIRECTION" inputs of the stepper drivers are wrong in comparison with the original GRBL definitions. CNC Carapace V4.0 use Arduino Nano so we can correct "STEP" and "DIRECTION" pins definitions in file "cpu_map_atmega328p.h" located in the grbl folder, as follows:

            #specify X_STEP_BIT   5  // Uno Digital Pin 2 #define Y_STEP_BIT   6  // Uno Digital Flag 3 #define Z_STEP_BIT   7  // Uno Digital Pin 4  #define X_DIRECTION_BIT   2  // Uno Digital Pin 5 #define Y_DIRECTION_BIT   3  // Uno Digital Pin 6 #define Z_DIRECTION_BIT   4  // Uno Digital Pin 7

            Step 5: STEPPER MOTOR DRIVER A4988

              The A4988 is a complete microstepping motor number one wood with shapely-in translator for easy operation. It is designed to operate bipolar stepper motors in glutted-step, one-half-pace, quarter-step, eighth-step, and sixteenth-step modes, with an output drive capacity of equal to 35V and ±2A.

              We fire control the stepper motive with just 2 pins from our controller, like Arduino: one for controlling the rotation direction and the other for controlling the steps.

              A. MICRO-STEPPING SETTINGS

              In many an applications, micro-stepping fanny increase system performance, and lower system complexness and be, compared to full-step and half-step driving techniques. Micro-stepping hindquarters personify used to work out all resonance, palpitatio and noise problems in a stepping motor motor system, and to increase step accuracy and resoluteness.

              The rules is, the more micro-stairs, the smoother motions but get down the torsion and and frailty versa. I had tried with 1/16 micro-stairs merely finally, I chose 1/8 micro-steps which is a good combination between smooth motion and torque.

              Each rotation of Videodisc/CD stepper is originally forked into 20 steps with angle 18° /gradation (1 rotation = 360 degrees | 360 / 20 = 18°). When we apply micro-stepping mode with 1/8 whole tone resolution along A4988 to control this stepper, each rotation of DVD/CD stepper will exist divide into 160 stairs with angle 2.25 ° /whole tone, making the rotation of the high stepper causative much smoother.

              MS1 MS2 MS3 STEP
              RESOLUTION                             		STEPS PER
              REVOLUTION
              0 0 0 1 20
              1 0 0 1/2 40
              0 1 0 1/4 80
              1 1 0 1/8 160
              1 1 1 1/16 320

              My micro-steps setting is 1/8 step resolution for both X and Y axis stepper motors:

              B. Present-day LIMITING

              The pruner potentiometer on the A4988 plank prat be used to localise the current limit of stepping motor. We should pay attention to the following steps:

                • The A4988 stepper driver boards use several current sense resistors RCS depending on the manufacturers, unremarkably RCS can be 0.05Ω (labeled with "R050"), 0.1Ω (labeled with "R100") operating room 0.2Ω (labelled with "R200"). The RCS happening my A4988 control board is: 0.1Ω .
                • The CD/DVD steppers operate at 5V voltage level, we could measure 2 coils resistivity with a multi-meter to get an estimated max current using Ohm's constabulary: IMAX = V/R.
                • The current limit, IMAX, relates to the reference voltage as follows: VREF = (8 * IMAX * RCS).

                My calulation sheet for X and Y high stepper motors:

                PLOTTER AXIS R V IMAX RCS VREF
                X AXIS Stepping motor 14.00Ω 5.00V 0.36A 0.10Ω 286mV
                Y AXIS STEPPER 10.00Ω 5.00V 0.50A 0.10Ω 400mV

                Following above calculation sheet, my final current limit settings for 2 stepper are:

                • X AXIS STEPPER: VREF = 286mV.
                • Y Axis vertebra STEPPER: VREF = 400mV.

                To calculate VREF needful for a target current A, we can apply the following simple formulas:

                • VREF = A/2.50 with RCS = 0.05Ω.
                • VREF = A/1.25 with RCS = 0.10Ω.
                • VREF = A/0.63 with RCS = 0.20Ω.

                Step 6: Assemblage

                A. MOUNTING X & Y AXIS

                There get been a good deal of book of instructions for making X and Y bloc - miniskirt CNC coconspirator. For this labor, I mainly used bolts to connect components together.

                • First step to get down building this Mini CNC Plotter is to disassemble two Videodisc/CD drives.
                • I soldered the 4 wire cables to 2 high stepper motors after identifying their windings and concluding wires.
                • I measured the distance of the DVD / CD player - X axis that leave be arranged horizontally, and then I cut aluminum angle 20 x 20 x 1.4 mm with the corresponding measured length. In my case information technology's 120mm long.
                • I trained a amount of 6 holes in this aluminum angle as follows:

                - Deuce holes are bolted to the DVD / CD drive of Y-axis aside M4x50.

                - Deuce holes are bolted to the DVD / CD drive of the X-axis by M4x25.

                - Two unexpended holes are connected to CNC Carapace V4.0 via copper establishment pillars L-10mm.

                • For Y axis - plotting Earth's surface, I utilized one stainless plate with dimension 70 x 80 millimeter.

                • The picture below shows the stand of the miniskirt CNC plotter.

                B. MOUNTING Z AXIS

                I have documented to many projects on how to do the pen lift mechanism and IT seems to be the most important & hardest part when building a CNC miniskirt plotter. When I used staplers at my office, I came up with the idea that I could use the stapler as the machinelike part to lift the compose. And it is rattling effective. If you had trouble of edifice a penitentiary get up of mini CNC plotter, you can refer my instruction manual below. It is easy to practise with the available office supplies.

                A stapler is an incredibly useful tool that is mostly found in offices and your own rest home. It's accustomed fasten together sheets of paper with staples. In this project, I in use the stapler's spring mechanism to move fold and down of Z axis.

                • Firstly I disassembled the stapler into bantam components.

                • The middle part is stapler's magazine cartridge with pushing block off and spring, it has 2 small holes with length 17 mm. I used it to mount the write out/ pencil.

                • I adjunctive them to 2 holes of the flexible coupling 5 x 8 aside 2 screws + 2 bull face pillars to hold the write/pencil.

                • Since the draw pitch of supple coupling hole differs from the common copper brass pillar, I have to used the cooper brass spacer taken from the broken computing machine. Its head is bigger than usual combined. You fundament check its mental picture below.

                • Guide note, to ensure the stapler spring do not touch the head of the screws when the pushing block squirming up and down, I grinded the head of deuce screws as scarecrowish every bit achievable.

                • RC servos is fitted well into the innermost U-molded frame of stapler.

                • I removed the plastic part, cut and kept exclusively the U-shaped part to clamp RC servo.

                • Connect RC servo and pushing pulley together by long screw M2 x 40 direct 4 holes of stapler. I tightened it to make sure the servo couldn't move when it worked.

                • On the spinal column side of stapler's magazine magazine, there is one big hole. Later it will be wont to connect pen/pencil holder including RC servomechanism to the X axis mechanism through this hole aside bolt M4x25 &ere; 3 nuts.

                • Put the pencil into the negotiable coupling and do aligning and tightening. To clamp the pen, we can reduce 2 remaining small screws on the flexible yoke. To lift the pen, I cut the rubber or acrylic sheet in round fles, exercise a hole in the middle with same pen's diameter. I mounted it on the pen, adjust it comparison with RC servo arm thusly that the pen tin be upraised up by RC servo branch and down by stapler spring smoothly.

                • And here downstairs is the ballpoint pen version

                C. FINAL ASSEMBLY

                • I on, aligned and demanding pen lift part to DVD/Compact disc aim - X axis by bolt and buggy.

                • I mounted CNC Shield V4.0 to atomic number 13 angle at 2 copper brass pillars and connected all cables of 2 stepper motors, RC servo to CNC shield. Then I used some cable ties to kettle of fish the wires and made it slicked up.

                • Finished.

                Footstep 7: UPLOAD MIGRBL Microcode TO ARDUINO NANO

                MIGRBL differs from original GRBL therein MIGRBL is customized for CNC shields that have the X and Y axes adjunctive to 2 stepper motors and the Z axis of rotation engaged to a RC servo motor for pen lifting in the lead/ down.

                    • Download MIGRBL firmware files.
                    • Copy MIGRBL to C:\Users\Administrator\Documents\Arduino\libraries\
                    • Do correction following STEP 4 - B. Fasten THE Computer software.
                    • Now that we have installed the MIGRBL library happening the IDE and did the nessessary correction. Open Arduino IDE, from File out menu click Examples --> MIGRBL --> grblUpload.
                    • Select the correct port and board (Arduino Nano), compile and upload the code to Arduino Nano.
                    • With my Arduino Nano, I had to select via the Arduino IDE's Tools --> Processor --> ATmega328P (Old Bootloader) after choosing Tools --> Board --> Arduino Nano.

                    We can ascertain more some GRBL at below site:

                    https://github.com/gnea/grbl/wiki

                    Step 8: INSTALLING INKSCAPE &A; INKSCAPE MI-GRBL Annex

                    I utilised INKSCAPE software to generate the G-inscribe.

                    • Downloaded INKSCAPE version 0.48.5 package.
                    • Installed it to my computing device.

                    Because I put-upon MIGRBL firmware for Arduino Nano (blocked on CNC Shield V4.0) for this miniskirt CNC plotter and Axis of rotation Z – pen lift is controlled by RC control system motor, so the normal G-CODE generated from INKSCAPE will not work. In order for information technology to work, we cause the following steps:

                    • Download the INKSCAPE Nautical mile-GRBL Denotation.
                    • Unzip the file in.
                    • Simulate the uncompressed files to the INKSCAPE directory --> Share --> Extension folder.

                    Step 9: INSTALLING GRBL CONTROLLER Coating

                    After we have an executable G-code file from INKSCAPE, to pullulate and send G-CODE file to Arduino Nano, we sack use Universal Gcode Sender - UGS.

                    • Download the UGS software at: https://key.github.io/ugs_website/download/, then install it to reckoner.
                    • Subject UGS, blue-ribbon Port and set Baud to 115200.
                    • Click on "Connect" then we can see in "Console table" tab the following informations are displayed.

                    Step 10: Standardization WORKS

                    STEPS/Millimetre: Tells GRBL how many stairs are required to move the machine a minded distance.
                    Stairs/millimetre = (Steps per Gyration)*(Small-steps) / (mm per Revolution)

                    • Steps per Revolution = 20 - This is the original number of steps required for the stepper efferent to get to 1 complete rotation.
                    • Microsteps - 1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 - This is a setting on the hoofer motor driver A4988. A higher respect substance lower torsion but high accuracy. My Micro-steps setting is: 1/8.
                    • mm per Rotation - This is distance in millimeter the screw moves in one revolution (roll in the hay pitch). Because Certificate of deposit/DVD ROM high stepper's ass is a "single-start" type, so the "pitch" is the axial length between adjacent threads.
                    The total distance of the screw: 51.56 mm
                    The functioning length of the screw: 40.00 mm
                    The threads counted in the working distance: 13 -
                    Step angel: 18 °
                    The number of steps required for DVD stepping motor to make 1 complete revolution: 20 step/revolutions per minute
                    A4988 little-steps setting: 8 -
                    DVD stepper screw rake (mm/revolution): 3.0 millimeter/rev up
                    STEP/MM: 53.333 step/mm

                    Reported to the specifications, the screw pitch of DVD/CD stepping motor motor is 3mm. We give the axe look into by measurement the working duration of the screw: 40mm and count the number of duds in that working kitchen stove: 14. The shtu pitch can Be estimated as follows:

                    PITCH = 40/13 = 3mm.

                    My inalterable standardisation:

                    • X Max travel (mm): $130 = 40.000
                    • Y Max move on (mm): $131 = 40.000
                    • X steps/mm: $101 = 53.333
                    • Y stairs/mm: $100 = 53.333

                    These above values worked precisely by my tests.

                    Pace 11: START TO Expend

                    We could pay attention the following steps before put the mini CNC plotter into operation.

                    • Baulk the A4988 micro-steps settings: detail description at STEP 5.
                    • Check the A4988 current limiting settings: contingent description at STEP 5.
                    • Connect the miniskirt CNC conspirator to UGS and check its calibration parameters: detail verbal description at STEP 10.
                    • To test the motors and the CNC Carapace, attend the Machine Control tablet --> Click on the arrows X+, X-, Y+ and Y-.
                    • We should observe tracking the high stepper motors moving, touch on them to check whether they are hot. If stepper motors were hot, we should double check the VREF on A4988 by multimeter and lower down a fleck the VREF.
                    • Correct the direction of this plotter is as survey: An easy way to understand the Cartesian reference frame in sexual intercourse to your CNC machine is using the "Exact Deal Rule".

                    We privy changes axis move instruction without changing wiring at Axis Direction $3 . Due to my stepping motor motors arrangement, I had to reverse the direction of the Y - axis stepper, so my setting value was: $3 = 2. See to it Axis of rotation Configuration Defer below.

                    Setting Value Reverse X Reverse Y Reverse Z
                    0 0 0 0
                    1 1 0 0
                    2 0 1 0
                    3
                    		 1 1 0
                    4 0 0 1
                    5 1 0 1
                    6 0 1 1
                    7 1 1 1

                    Axis of rotation Configuration Table

                    • INKSCAPE:

                    - Open INKSCAPE.

                    - Set foliate sized to 40 x 40mm.

                    - Pull off a square with diemension 10 millimeter x 10 millimetre --> Select Project --> Change to Path

                    - Go to Extension Menu --> Snap on MIGRBL Z-AXIS SERVO Curb , adjust the values on the pop-up box. My mise en scene is showed on the picture below:

                    - Click on Employ, the square G-code is saved with a name & at the folder we chose.

                    • Universal Gcode Sender

                    - Wide-eyed UGS, select Port and primed Baud rate to 115200, click on "Relate" lozenge.

                    - Select the appropriate office by moving X axes nigh - right, Y axes forward - rearwards and rig the original coordinates by button "Reset Zero".

                    - Mouse click "Open" --> Browse to the G-code file that generated aside INKSCAPE.

                    - Click "Send" and mini CNC bequeath perform drawing square 10x10 millimeter following the G-code.

                    - Monitor the mini plotter in action on the "Visualizer" tab.

                    - Measure the actual length in X and Y axes by ruler to see if 10mm was correct. If not, we should check the step/mm Oregon any mechanical parts get stuck.

                    - Draw whatever to a greater extent circles with different diameters, check if the start and end point of the circle coincide? If it does not coincide, it is possible that the pen tip is skew, or the mechanical parts are not aligned.

                    Step 12: FINISH

                    You can see some pictures of this project. My mini CNC plotter whole kit and boodle pretty good although I get it on that it need to be more fine-tempered.

                    Thank you for your reading!!!

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