DIY Arduino Mini CNC Plotter Using an Old DVD Drive

In this tutorial, I will tell you how to quickly make your own low-costArduino Mini CNC plotter.The plotter in the picture is an improved version, and I have made certain enhancements to the structure and accuracy of the original plotter. Read this article carefully, and I believe you can easily manage your own Arduino Mini plotter.

Brief Description:

On the X-axis and Y-axis, we will use two stepper motors and the sliding rails from the DVD/CD drive. On the Z-axis, we will also use a small servo motor to drive the drawing pen up and down. We will use resin glass for the installation base.

I originally wanted to make it a dual-purpose machine for both engraving and plotting, but after several experiments, I found that this machine can only mount a drawing pen, which is a bit regrettable.

The circuit based on the Arduino development board uses the ATmega328microcontroller, 2 L293D integrated circuit drivers, and a USB serial adapter. You can easily accomplish all this with an Arduino Uno development board and a breadboard.

Want to print your drawing works? Just add a Bluetooth module.

Step 1: Required Materials

Tip: You can refer to the pictures for parts you don’t understand.

All hardware parts were purchased from, but I believe you can find everything on the all-powerful Taobao as well.

When making the circuit, you need

Beginner’s checklist:

Arduino Uno

Breadboard

2 L293D integrated circuit motor drivers

Mini servo motor

2 DVD or CD drives

Experienced user’s checklist:

ATmega328p (with Arduino’s Bootloader)

28-pin DIP integrated circuit socket

16MHz crystal oscillator

2 22pF and 1 100nF capacitors

10k resistors

USB serial adapter

2 L293D integrated circuits

Mini servo motor

2 DVD or CD drives

Prototype PCB circuit board

4 two-pin screw terminal connectors or 2 four-pin screw terminal connectors

You will also need an Arduino UNO to program the ATmega328 microcontroller.

With the USB serial adapter, you can connect your computer and circuit board just like you would with an Arduino Uno.

Why do we also need screw terminal connectors? Because we are reluctant to use a soldering iron until we find the right combination; otherwise, it would be troublesome if we solder incorrectly.

When making the installation base, you need:

Prepare a piece of 20×16 cm resin glass for the X-axis (with a thickness of about 5 mm).

Prepare two pieces of 14×4 cm resin glass for the Y-axis (with the same thickness).

About 20 nuts, screws, and washers.

Some spacers.

Four supporting corners (preferably made of plastic)

If you don’t have resin glass, you can also use wood, metal, or scraps from CD and DVD drives.

Tools:

Screwdriver

Soldering iron

Solder

Drill

Cutting tool

Strong glue

Step 2: Stepper Motors

First, we need to disassemble the DVD/CD drive and remove the stepper motor on top. As shown in Figure 1, use a screwdriver to take it apart and remove the sliding rail.

Now we have two stepper motors; the next step is to solder some wires for future use. Before starting, please refer to Figure 2. Next, we need to find the best wiring combination, so we can use a multimeter. Use two alligator clips to hold the wires (as shown in Figure 3), and then set it to the “short circuit” function. Generally, the first and second wires will close the circuit, causing the LED to light up and the alarm to sound, indicating that we have found the first motor, while the third and fourth wires will lead to the second motor.

In this CNC plotter, the first motor is the one using wires one and three, while the second motor uses wires two and four.

Once the wiring combination is determined, we can proceed to the next step.

Step 3: Installing the Base, X-axis and Y-axis

X-axis:

First, place a stepper motor on a larger piece of resin glass, then use a marker to mark its exact position for drilling screw holes later. Make sure its position is accurate, then drill holes and secure the motor with screws.

The next step is to prepare the four supporting corners. Find their positions and mark them with a marker, ensuring a 5 mm gap between them. Then, as shown in Figure 2, drill eight screw holes and secure them tightly with screws.

Y-axis:

Place another stepper motor on two pieces of resin glass and mark its detailed position with a marker, then repeat the previous steps to drill four holes for securing it with screws.

Then place these two pieces of resin glass on the larger piece of resin glass on the X-axis, and repeat the previous steps to secure them.

Completion of Assembly:

After drilling the necessary holes and securing the modified screws, our assembly is complete. I installed a metal plate on the larger piece of resin glass on the X-axis, which will hold sticky notes for the plotter to draw on. Regular sticky notes are 75×75 mm, but our plotter can only draw images of 40×40 mm, so you need to modify its size accordingly. Remember, accuracy is very important in this project.

Step 4: Z-axis

This is probably the most complex part of the structure.

To install it on the Y-axis, you need a flat surface. On this surface, you need to install the servo motor (Z-axis) and the pen holder. Under the drive of the servo motor, the drawing pen should be able to move up and down normally. If you are still unclear, please refer to the above image for understanding.

Tip: Make full use of your imagination.

Step 5: Circuit

Having completed the fourth step, we have finished the basic hardware part and can now start making the circuit and testing the stepper motors on the X-axis and Y-axis.

The above image shows the circuit diagram on the breadboard.

Completing this step requires your patience. In the next step, we will also test the stepper motors on the X-axis and Y-axis. If they do not work properly, you need to change the wiring connections in time.

Power Supply:

A single USB port cannot provide sufficient current, so you need to add another USB cable. After connecting the power supply, the voltage remains at 5V, but the current has doubled.

Note:

If you want to use other hardware, such as motor end covers or stepper motor driver circuits, you will need to modify the above circuit and Arduino code. Of course, I cannot provide specific modification details; you can search for related tutorials online.

Step 6: Testing Stepper Motors on X-axis and Y-axis

Below is the code we will use to test the X-axis and Y-axis. You can embed it into the Arduino development board using Codebender.

Codebender is an online Arduino IDE, and you can program your Arduino development board directly in your browser. Just click the “Run on Arduino” button to get started, and I strongly recommend everyone to try it.

X-axis:

In the test, you need to ensure that the X-axis motor can move from front to back (as shown by the black arrow in the image).

Code download

Y-axis:

In the test, you need to ensure that the Y-axis motor can move from left to right (as shown by the red arrow in the image).

Step 7: CNC Code

Here is the main CNC code we will use, and you can embed it into the Arduino development board usingCodebender.

In this step, your drawing pen will lift up. If it does not respond, you need to modify the penUp and penDown variables to adjust the servo motor (just click the Edit button).

Click the “Run on Arduino” button to program your development board from the browser.

Step 8: GCTRL Program

Now we can start drawing our first artwork. However, we still need a program called gctrl.pde, which can send gcode images to the CNC plotter.

So what is gcode? It is actually a document that contains the relevant X, Y, Z axis coordinate information. The coordinate values in the header are set as follows:

M300 S30.00 (servo motor down)

G1 X20.00 Y10.00 F2500.00

M300 S50.00 (servo motor up)

You can click the link to download the program, then find the relevant software to open it and click the “Play” button to start the program.

According to the instructions in the above image:

Click ‘p’ and select your Arduino serial port.

Click ‘g’ and select the ‘TEXT.gcode’ or ‘gear.gcode’ document.

(If there is an error during operation, click ‘x’ to stop the plotter, and then try again.)

Step 9: How to Create Your Own gcode Document

To create your own gcode document, you need to use Inkscape.

Inkscape is a free professional high-quality vector graphics software that runs smoothly on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. It is not only a favorite among professional designers but also a tool for enthusiasts. You can use this software to create illustrations, icons, maps, logos, etc. Inkscape’s native format is W3C open standard SVG, and it is also open-source software. You can click the link to download the software (remember to download version 0.48.5).

After downloading, you need to install an additional component to convert the output image into a gcode document. Below is the download link for that component, which comes with installation instructions, making it easy to use.

Inkscape Settings

First, open Inkscape, go to the file menu, and click “Document Properties,” then make adjustments according to the prompts in the image (remember to set the relevant units to centimeters). After setting, close that window. Next, we will use the 4 to 8 cm blank area on the screen (as shown in the image).

How to Draw Text

For text, you can modify its orientation and size. Steps: Click the cursor to set the text size (as shown in the image), selectPath on the panel and click “Object to Path” in the dropdown menu.

How to Draw Images

This step is much more difficult than drawing text because the image background must be transparent. Drag the image into Inkscape, click OK to enter the next interface, and now you can adjust the image size (as shown in the image). Steps: Click Path in the menu and select “Trace Bitmap,” then modify it as shown in the image. Once done, click OK and close the window. Next, we will adjust the grayscale image and delete its background color. Then click Path again and select “Object to path,” and the image outline will be deleted as shown in the image.

Output in gcode Document Format

Finally, return to the file menu, click to save as a gcode document, and click OK in the next interface to complete the task. You can then happily use the gctrl application to draw on your Arduino CNC plotter.

Step 10: Completion

If you can follow the steps above, I believe you have made your own CNC plotter. I hope you enjoy it.

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