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We 3d printed and assembled a "plotclock". This is a mechanical arm that writes and erases the time at pre-defined intervals.
We used a remixed version of Joo's Plot Clock which can be found at:
Thingiverse link
Parts:
- All of the plastic parts are 3d printed.
- 3 servos are attached to effect movement along the x,y and z axes.
- An arduino acts as the brain of this device. Once a minute, it instructs the servos to move the arms.
- These arms move the pen to write out the time. Once it finishes writing the time, it lifts the pen and returns it into a cap, which it drags in a sweeping motion to erase the previosly written time.
- Having cleaned the board, it returns to its 'home' position and waits for the next minute before it starts writing again.
- The code can be calibrated to change the speed (writing of lift) and positioning of the device First Attempt:
- Before we owned a 3d printer, we sent the original Joo Plot Clock STL files to a shop for printing.
- We then assembled it, calibrated it and got it running over the course of 2 evenings.
- Issues:
- We don't own a tap drill and the holes in each piece were too small to force screws through. We ended up having to shave off plastic to widen the holes and force screws through with an electric screwdriver
- Our calibration wasn't great and caused some numbers to print strangely
- The cap of our marker did not fit into the resting slot
- We printed each part using our FLSUN Kossel Delta 3d printer and got it to work reliably
- Issues
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