Stylosaurus Writing Robot

This is a remix, redesigned to use more commonly available parts off the shelf from Amazon, and to provide some skin to the naked robotics underneath. Once the design was finished it kind of looked like a robot to me, hence the Stylosaurus was born!

If you print your own linear bearings and use the cheaper A4988 stepper drivers, this robot can be built for less than $100!

Writing in action:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdRJX5wR3FE

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LASvvDEvTLs

Software and firmware is provided below that allows the robot to automatically write out messages it receives to an email address of your choice. To me, the groundbreaking part was figuring out how to automate the pipeline for gcode generation from text to the raw movements that are streamed to the robot. That part's pretty neat!

The build itself is quite easily done, everything should work out of the box saved for three caveats:

1. If you use the silent motor drivers like I did, make sure you bend out the two pins facing down near the capacitor on the motor shield or they might short.
2. The servo should be plugged into A6 slot on the motor driver board. A wire then has to be soldered between the Arduino's D11 and A6 pins to enable the servo.
3. To use the grbl coreXY-servo firmware with an Arduino Nano, you have to upload the Uno bootloader to it first or the firmware won't fit!

...But that's it!

BoM: 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KPcgJ3NDF4v7QkGNweR3nLLtkxWqG_l7_JCG9lrZB20/edit?usp=sharing

Uses Inkscape 0.91 + J Tech Photonics Laser Tool V_10, the Universal Gcode Sender, and grbl v0.9 (grbl-coreXY-servo).

https://github.com/arnabdasbwn/grbl-coreXY-servo

So far the performance has been mostly limited by the pen quality and g-code, the sky's the limit!

Python sketch to control the robot with a raspberry pi:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qAOXt4RkR4lW4GHbGaNgh2pRqyPfbhAW/view?usp=share_link

Python sketch to receive email to forward as writing to the robot:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1w_bip4B3zzW2H4WkRZY14I927KlWMnMS/view?usp=share_link 

Arduino firmware sketch: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19jrSSyW_YrdfVMBgUInIPGVzbI7Ljjm0/view?usp=share_link

Print Settings

Printer Brand:

Prusa

Printer: 

i3 MK3 MMU 2

Rafts:

No

Supports: 

Yes

Resolution:

0.2

Infill: 

20%

Filament: Hatchbox PLA Blue

Notes:

Any material does the trick.

Category: Robotics