XY Plotter 2 – 3D Model

Over this series of posts we will be giving a brief insight into the development process of the XY plotter. In this post I will discuss the process of creating the 3D model and importing it into Flowcode for characterisation.

The 3D model of the XY plotter was first created in a 3D drawing package called Google SketchUp. Sketchup is a nice, relatively simple, drawing package with a much smaller learning curve than a lot of other drawing packages. And…it’s free! The completed SketchUp design for the XY plotter can be seen above. One of the design requirements was to utilise as many in house components as we could to reduce costs. The base is the same base as used in our Automatics range, and the vast majority of all other plastic parts are laser cut here at Matrix. The electronics hardware used will be discussed in another blog post. Since this is a concept, the plotter utilises a pen to draw shapes, rather than something along the lines of a laser. Although the learning principles remain the same regardless.

In order to characterise the XY plotter model we first needed to separate the complete model into smaller parts. We needed 5 individual elements; the base, x-axis, y-axis, pen holder and the pen itself. The five elements are seen in the figure below. Each was imported into Flowcode by simply dragging the file from the windows environment, onto the System Panel.

The final step, once all 5 objects were imported, was to align them as required. For this, the “2D Flat View” option in the System Panel is excellent. Components are moved by dragging them to their approximate location, and then fine-tuning their position by changing the XYZ coordinates in the properties panel.

Once the objects were located in the desired position, it was also required to group objects as necessary. When using the stepper motor to move an object, for example, you will need to assign the motor with the handle of the object to move. It can also be used to move a group of objects, rather than just a single object. For example, to move the x-axis left and right, it needs to move both the pen holder and the pen itself. So, we have have to group the objects and name this as “x-axis”. To group objects  you need to highlight all objects you desire to be in the group. To group you can either drag a mouse over them, or hold SHIFT as you left click on objects. Once all objects are selected, in the top right corner of the system panel you will see a small icon of a chain-link, see diagram below. Click this and the group is created. In the panel properties you can then rename the group to a meaningful name.

This concludes the necessary steps to characterising the XY plotter. In the next blog post I will discuss more about the electronics used to create the XY plotter, mainly the E-blocks used, and the reasons for requirement.

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