polargraph – Pappmaskin.no

This has been on the todolist for a few years, but today I finally got around to building my first drawbot using Arduino. I wanted to make something that was light, minimal and portable, that can be added to any flat surface with a gluegun. I use small steppermotors with bobbins (from eBay) and thread from a sewing machine to lift a coin with a sharpened charcoal-stick though the center, and a solid metal picture frame as a base.

Version 0.1: Drawing spirals

https://www.instagram.com/p/BIrh5Z1AA0w/

Hardware
Arduino: Duemilanove arduino board or similar, from eBay.
2 x Stepper motors: 28BYJ48, from eBay
2 x stepper drivers: ULN2003, from eBay
Gondola: Coin with center hole. Charcoal is sharpened and fitted, and fastened with a few dots of glue.
2 x Sewing machine bobbins, from eBay with thread
Charcoal stick, from eBay
Hot glue gun, from eBay

Code (based on this):
By changing the speed and number of steps it draws asymetric paths. 2048 steps = 1 revolution on these stepper motors.

Charcoal Timelapse:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BIrtcmTgCDz/

Ink Test
I cut a piece of sponge and used a pipette to add ink while the machine is running.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BIs9GsygLwi/

Version 1.0: Running Polargraph Controller software

The machine is now running the Polargraph firmware, controlled via serial from a Processing app on my laptop. It took a bit of tinkering to get the firmware to run with my steppers and drivers, but once it was up and running it worked pretty well.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BJTeb8YA-ea/?taken-by=mskogly

https://www.instagram.com/p/BJcRe5GAxXo/?taken-by=mskogly

Next steps
Run the machine on grbl firmware and test other controllers.
Testing a variations of pens and paper.
Build more machines! Some of the motives I’m working on takes up to 12 hours to draw, so to increase the learning curve I would love to have at least a few more up and running.

Useful tutorials:
Wire and run one stepper and driver.
BYJ48 stepper motor on Instructables
Code for running two stepper motors in opposite directions
Polargraph Drawing Machine on Instructables