How cool it would be, if you could get a battery powered WLAN plotter to draw stuff for you? And if it was DIY-able. Well, the good news is, it is possible, for real! You can now make one using 2 old optical drives, 4 H bridges, a Raspberry Pi and a servo. To start with, you need the optical drives’ stepper motor mechanism, which is used to move the laser unit. You can connect them perpendicularly, as shown in the picture below.
You can get more detailed pictorial representations on the link given below or watch the video. You can make a pen holder using a metal strip, which is glued to the laser head and the servo ensures the vertical movement of the pen. Use a computer power supply to run the completed mechanism. Follow the schematic drawing of the WLAN or watch the video, whichever seems plausible for you. Download the software to perform the task and you’re good to go.
The software, at present, can compute bitmaps with a resolution of 55 x 55 pixels and a color depth of 24 bits. So how this works is, the software treats all pixel components less than 200 as ‘black’ and plots them and all other pixels are ignored. You convert the outlines to ‘Polygon’ and export the images by Libre Office Draw.
Read the guide and see how you can get larger pictures and be more creative!
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