Pen plotter

[James Mastros]

Allo, folks.  I've tried to write up the results of my hacking on the pen plotter from the last few weeks in a wiki-like-form, and it's available at https://github.com/snhack/snhack.github.com/wiki/Pen-plotter.  Please, take a look, edit until it reads well, or tell me what I've missed out.

If somebody who knows more or less what they are doing wants to have a go at getting something plotted on copper and etched, now would be a good time to start.

   -=- James Mastros

[jmeosbn .]

Nice, one of us will have to try to follow your instructions as posted.

You mention a fixme: (copied below) but the config follows this text - is there more required, or is this fixed?  As for the others, I can test on OS X (and Win, if req.).

"Add a new stanza to the bottom of the file, to teach Eagle how to output GP-GL. (FIXME: copy from lenny.)"

Jamie Osborne

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[James Mastros]

Oh, yeah, that fixme is dead.  (Lenny the lenovo is my laptop.)

[jmeosbn .]

Ha ha!  Cool, we should try this on OS X / Win next then. :)

Jamie Osborne

[Robert Longbottom]

Nice post James.  I've added a small bit on the wiki page about what Dave said about using the etch resist - mainly to dilute it.

[Gyrobot]

With reference to conductive ink, glue and circuits etc : check this out :

http://www.3ders.org/articles/20140716-squink-lets-you-print-a-circuit-board-fast-and-cheap.html

[Robert Longbottom]

That looks pretty neat.

On 17 July 2014 10:45:16 Gyrobot <sp...@gyrobot.co.uk> wrote:

With reference to conductive ink, glue and circuits etc : check this out :

http://www.3ders.org/articles/20140716-squink-lets-you-print-a-circuit-board-fast-and-cheap.html

--

[Robert Longbottom]

Some success with getting the plotter to plot last night.  I managed to export a circuit I'd designed in Eagle using the instructions on the wiki and wrote a bit of C# code to send the data to the plotter.  I ended up using a delay of 100ms between lines, which seemed to work okay and go at a reasonable pace.  I'll post the code at some point, but it's nothing clever!

One issue is that it doesn't fill in the pads or tracks.  There is an option in the Cam export dialog to "fill pads" but it's greyed out, though it is checked.  However it just seems to ignore it.

There is a mention of this (and a workaround) on this http://www.instructables.com/id/Paperduino-20-with-Circuit-Scribe/ instructable (which coincidentally looks pretty cool):

In EAGLE PCB, the component pads will not be filled in by the pen plotter when exported as a DXF -- only the outlines will be drawn. To solve this issue, overlay the pads with meandering line features so they will be filled by a raster pattern. 

Now if only I knew how to draw "meandering line features" in Eagle... :-)

Rob.