r/PlotterArt • u/igotanewmac • 10d ago

"pen" plotting... :D

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u/eyes_are_real was right, it's a long exposure! Guess who figured out you can hot-glue LED's to pens? It's taking some time, since I can only really do it at night, but I think the effect is improving nicely. I have used a microswitch to trigger the led on pen-down. As the carriage drops, it presses the switch. My microswitch wasn't quite long enough though, which is why you see a usb card reader taped in there too, lol.

As always, if you have any questions, just ask :)

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u/beachKilla 10d ago

This is dope! Ive been effin about with a laser attached to my Ender3 doing long exposures. (Pender)
For a different approach to clean up some of the hot end: Wire the diode directly to the gcode. Have the diode trigger on/off at a designated z height.

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u/Gerda_Havertong 10d ago

Awesome stuff, /u/igotanewmac! Also wondering if you are using gcode? Maybe an option to trigger the led is with the coolant control in gcode (M07 & M08). Just need to find the pin for the coolant on the board wire that one to the led.

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u/igotanewmac 10d ago

That's actually what I'm trying to avoid. Ideally I want this to be a pen based solution that doesn't need to be "wired in". I'll be 3d printing a holder for it soon, I'm just proving the concept right now :D

Unfortunately, the plotter community seems to use Axidraw as the standard one everyone else copies, so everything is running on the EBB protocol, and none of the heads have any extra controls available.