TinyCNC: Too Many Ideas

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Thinkin’ hard

I’ve been brainstorming ways to make the TinyCNC better:

  1. Drawing and Recording.
    1. My idea is to be able to control the robot through they keypad, perhaps going through the motions for a drawing or to perform a small task, and then have it “replay” the same motions.  Ideally, press the “*” key to start “recording,” draw something with the keypad, press “*” to stop recording, and then press the “#” button to replay the motions.  Could be nifty!
  2. Drawing by Remote Control.
    1. The Adafruit keypad I’m using is great!  There are only two, very minor, problems with it.  First, it requires 7 input pins, which means that I definitely need a full-fledged Arduino to run the robot, even though it can run off a tiny Adafruit Trinket or Digispark.  Second, the buttons are a little difficult for my youngest daughter to press.
    2. Using an IR receiver sensor, I could use a small IR remote to control the robot – which would be great.  Or, I could possibly even use an old remote control from a TV or VCR.12345
  3. Changes to Y Axis.  The Y-axis tends to “droop” when it is fully extended.  If the underside was slightly longer, it could just have a plastic runner that would keep it level.
  4. Changes to Z Axis.  The current Z-axis sucks.  It is very wobbly and not able to hold a pen very well.  If it had a sliding slot/notch system like the XY axes do, it might not be as bad.
  5. Changes to X Pinion/Gear.  If this were very slightly thinner, I wouldn’t have to raise the X rack slightly off the drawing surface.  Or, of course, I could make the X rack slightly taller.
Tiny CNC Drawing Robot
  1. An Itty Bitty Drawing Robot
  2. Tiny CNC Drawing Robot - Cost Estimate
  3. How to Build a Tiny CNC Drawing Robot
  4. Better video of Tiny CNC Drawing Robot actually drawing
  5. Design considerations with the Tiny CNC
  6. Tiny CNC - An Experiment in Commerce
  7. Tiny CNC - Going to 100
  8. How to Wire a Tiny CNC
  9. Tiny CNC - now a 3 Axis CNC!
  10. Tiny CNC Software Update
  11. How to Build a Tiny 3-Axis CNC Drawing Robot
  12. Tiny 3-Axis CNC Drawing Robot - Software Update and Design version 0.29 postmortem
  13. Nine Drawing Robots On the Loose!
  14. Competing Design Ideals in a Drawing Robot
  15. The Tiniest Drawing Robot Actually Draws!
  16. Robot Friends: Tiny CNC and the WaterColorBot
  17. Tiny Drawing Robot Gallery
  18. TinyCNC Drawing Robot Software User Guide
  19. Drawing Robot AFRON 2013 Design Challenge Entry
  20. Robot Challenge Marathon
  21. TinyCNC Two steps forward, one step back!
  22. Drawing Robot In A Box
  23. Drawing By Numbers
  24. TinyCNC: Too Many Ideas
← Previous
  1. That’s a “video cassette recorder.” [↩]
  2. That’s like a DVD that you have to rewind at top speed before you can watch it again – and where the quality degrades slightly every time you watch it [↩]
  3. Oh.  Sure.  Yes.  A DVD is like a Blu-Ray, only it doesn’t look quite as good on your TV. [↩]
  4. Blu-Ray?  Yeah, okay.  That’s…  like… if you had a coaster that could only stream just one movie off Netflix if you stick into a box next to your TV [↩]
  5. TV?!  Seriously?!  Okay, okay.  It’s like a really big phone that can’t make calls or text. [↩]

2 thoughts on “TinyCNC: Too Many Ideas”

  1. Light pens came out for signing like for atm signatures etc. Could you make a direct lightpen to cnc coder? That way you could draw and plotter could mimic but you could have a cnc motor movement code.

    • @Miles: I see no reason why you couldn’t make this happen. There are lots of possible ways to put this ‘bot to use. I’m sure you could use a mouse, trackpad, keypad, remote control, or even a mousepad. I believe a friend even wrote a small Android app for controlling the TinyCNC through a phone’s touchscreen.

      Only real limitation is your imagination and ingenuity.

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