3D Printed Time-plotting Robot – Kuongshun Electronic Shop
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3D Printed Time-plotting Robot

| Wayne Chen

This is the project we saw from Thingiverse and it was very interesting, so give it a try!

The cute time-plotting robot uses a dry-erase pen to write out the time on a small board, then erases it and rewrites the next minute, repeating the process every minute. Designed for DIY and hackers, plotclock is powered by 3 9g servos and it controls the robot arm through 3D printing hardware.

 

 

Item List

  • K10 3D printer
  • Kuongshun Arduino UNO R3
  • 3 servos
  • 1 dry wipe pen
  • Multiple nuts, bolts, thread tap

 

3D printing

According to the provided stl file (3d print-plotclock), the parts are printed out using a 3D printer and assembled, note the direction of the servos and the range of motion of the 180° steering arm. After the servos is installed, the arm is attached to the steering arm. The screw cannot be tightened too tightly or too loosely. 

 

Wiring

The servo pin can be selected according to the code below.
servo pinservo pin

 

Debugging

After installation, start the calibration of the robot arm.
Add the 'DS3231' and 'Time-master' library files to your arduino library. Open the 'plotclock.ino' file.
debugging servo

The second 'define' is the time to set whether to use the clock module. A fixed custom time will be used when the clock module is not used.

The first 'define' is to set the debug mode. In the debug mode, the two robotic arm servos start to move at about 90 degrees. 

At this point, the robot arm is calibrated, the servo on the left side points to the front left and the servo on the right side points directly above, both are positive 90 degrees.

The figure shows the state when the left and right servos reach 90 degrees:

Calibration servos
If the displayed 90 degrees is not standard, the angles of the left servo pointing to the left and the right servo pointing to the right are adjusted by the following two values.
adjusted servo
Use the following two values to adjust the angle at which the two servos point upward.
adjust servoadjust servo

Until the servo points to the right left and right. It should be noted here that the voltage level will affect the angle of the servo, so the same power source should be used from commissioning to operation.
After adjusting the angle, turn off the debug mode and the arm starts to perform the erase and write time actions. At this time, the following values are adjusted according to the distance from the pen to the board to enable the pen to better write the font and complete the erasing action.
adjusted servo
After the adjustment is completed, the three servos are ready. Delete the annotation to enable the clock module.
clock module
When using the clock module for the first time, you need to enable the following three lines of code to write the correct time.
clock module
Then program arduino again, then it will write the correct time.
 
 

Schematic Diagram


schematic diagram servo

 

Code Download

 

More information:

 

 

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