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PVC pipe is a popular building material among the frugal, because it is easy to find, affordable, and relatively strong for its weight. But we don’t often see machine tools built with PVC, as the material simply can’t hold up to serious force without bending or breaking. Pen plotters, however, are unique in that they only experience the force of moving their own weight. That let tuenhidiy get away with PVC pipe as a construction material for this DIY CNC pen plotter that features fixed belts. Plastic Extruder
Most machines of this type have fixed motors that pull belts to move each axis. This machine is the opposite, with the belts fixed in place and the motors moving along them like trains on tracks. While it doesn’t make much of a difference for this machine, fixed-belt kinematics can provide some advantages. If the machine were very large, for example, fixed-belts could help to keep the motors contained within one area.
Aside from the fixed belts, this machine is unique because of the construction. Tuenhidiy made heavy use of PVC pipe for the machine’s structure. That supplements plywood, acrylic sheet, and aluminum extrusion. Each axis rides on bearings running on a pair hardened steel rods, which provide most of the rigidity. The large-diameter PVC pipe also acts as an enclosure for the electronic components and PVC caps even serve as mounts for the steel rods. The z-axis system, which lifts and lowers the pen, is a repurposed CD-ROM tray mechanism.
The controller consists of an Arduino Uno paired with a CNC Shield V3 that runs GRBL firmware and interfaces with the steppers through A4988 drivers. A separate wired remote interface lets the user load G-code and set up a job. That remote contains an Arduino Nano, a small LCD screen, a rotary encoder, and a microSD card reader module.
Because this machine takes advantage of GRBL firmware, it can accept G-code created by many different programs. That could be true CAM (computer-aided manufacturing) software, or even one of several different open-source plugins that are available for Inkscape. And even though it may not look like it, this machine seems capable of producing very nice drawings.
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