3D Printed Solidoodle 2 Pen Plotter Hack

Dear: LMR

Recently a friend asked me if I could make a cnc engraver for him. He has done all the work and purchased all the parts except for software and mounting the scraper to it. Basically it is going to mill PCB boards without the need of autoleveling at all. It will use a spring loaded scraper to etch a circuit board. I have already designed the part that needs milling. I have even made the part with my milling machine from wood. Wish me goo luck!!!

From: Noah

 

Below is the piece that happens to be the scraper.

Bellow is the back of the printer and the motherboard.

This is the x axis where the 3D printed part comes into play because it mounts on top of this.

The STL file can hold an auto leveling inductive sensor and the scraper.

 

This is the mount I made for the x axis for the milling it is going to be doing. Wish me good luck!!!

UPDATE:

Just so you guys know I realized there were a few problems with the solidoodle 3D printer that would make it inadequate for cnc milling. After configuring the firmware to it and hooking resistors to it to make it cooporate with marlin I realized the z axis is very woobly which is why I then 3D printed parts out of PLA plastic to make it less woobly. This I believe is the untested final result. I will post a video of it working on youtube in the end. Wish me good luck!!!

Conclusion

I have 3D printed a pen holder to hold a pen. As I found out the hard way no amount of tourque from the stepper motors is powerful enough to scrape copper off of a copper board. So I 3D printed a pen holder hoping to make circuit boards that way. Not only that I replaced the old motherboard with a GRBL Shield because I couldn't upload GRBL to the machine very easily. Wish me good luck!!! Thanks!!! A test video will be uploaded soon.


This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://community.robotshop.com/robots/show/3d-printed-solidoodle-2-pen-plotter-hack

Updates

Looking forward to seeing the machien run. Based on the photos and your last update, you’re getting close! Any modifications needed to the software?

A ton of software changes and potential motherboard actually.

I realized a few days ago it is not going to work with it’s current software. It needs grbl installed not marlin on it. So expect to see some software changes or potential motherboard lol. I couldn’t find a version of GRBL I was looking for lol. Thanks!!!