This CNC Plotter is one of my favorite projects. I've wanted to
build one of these CNC machines since I was a kid, and now I
have the necessary knowledge in electronics and programming to
do so. I made this CNC Plotter out of recycled DVD drives and an
Arduino board, and the body is made of laser-cut wood.
build one of these CNC machines since I was a kid, and now I
have the necessary knowledge in electronics and programming to
do so. I made this CNC Plotter out of recycled DVD drives and an
Arduino board, and the body is made of laser-cut wood.
A plotter is a machine that produces vector graphics drawings. Plotters draw lines on paper using a pen, or in some applications, use a knife to cut a material like vinyl or leather. In the latter case, they are sometimes known as a cutting plotter.
In the past, plotters were used in applications such as computer-aided design, as they were able to produce line drawings much faster and of a higher quality than contemporary conventional printers.
Smaller desktop plotters were often used for business graphics. Printers with graphics capabilities took away some of the market by the early 1980s, and the introduction of laser printers in the mid-1980s largely eliminated the use of plotters from most roles.
Plotters retained a niche for producing very large drawings for many years, but have now largely been replaced by wide-format conventional printers. Cutting plotters remain in use in a number of industries.
