This is my interpretation of a mini CNC plotter made from old PC disk drives. The idea was inspired by similar projects you can see on the Internet. The implementation however (HW+SW) is custom.
In sections below you can find description, videos, pictures, source code and stuff:
Photos
Videos
Bitmap drawing
A bitmap file can be loaded via GUI and the plotter will draw it line by line.
This is done by drawing each horizontal line of a bitmap one by one, while lifting the tool for white pixels and lowering it for black ones.
Drawing a maze
A maze can be generated and drawn via GUI. This maze is a result of ‘walking’ through an N by N points array using a backtracking algorithm.
Free mode
The plotter will mimic shapes drawn on the GUI’s canvas. Each ‘shape’ begins with a mouseDown and ends with mouseUp event. The inbetween list of points is then sent to the plotter.
Architecture overview
Main system components in hardware and software domains:
Here’s a brief list of activities and actors:
Source code
Here is the complete source code for frontend, backend and driver: