In my last post, I gave an introduction to the hobby of 3D Printing, and today, I have something similar, but a lot less mainstream, despite its simplicity.
Plotters have been used by architects for a while now, typically for laying out blueprints, etc. They are usually made of 2 axis, X and Y, which run perpendicular to each other. Two motors on the end of the X axis pull on a belt which is able to manipulate the pen, which rests on the end of the Y axis.
Recently, these devices have been scaled down for commercial use, and can write on basic 8.5×11″ paper, or smaller. I myself put one together in the past week. It functions great out of the box, and has only a few minor things which need tweaks.
The issue with these, however, is how little there is about these commercial plotters on the internet. Compared to 3D Printing, XY Plotters are much less mainstream. This leads to a lot of homebrew operations, and requires more tinkering with GCode, the language these printers run on.
Overall, this is a super fun hobby, and there are tons of things you can get into. The plotter runs smooth and each job takes 30 min max, from what I’ve seen.
