Connecting to a pen plotter

Hallo, I wonder if I could ask a couple of questions here please.

I find myself needing to build a pen plotter, around 2m on the rail and 1m on the gantry. As I have zero history with CNC kit of any sort I have started by installing LinuxCNC 2.8 on Mint 18.3. The machine is a Thinkpad T520, with latency while doing nothing else of 20,000/27,000 or so. It will be doing nothing else while running the plotter.

As far as I can see from reading up, I need to build the plotter with an Arduino, a shield with drivers and PSU, and connect the Arduino to this machine with an ethernet cable. Is this broadly correct? While I need to pick some firmware to load onto the Arduino, the current installation of LinuxCNC is sufficient? Does the Arduino firmware need any particular characteristics to match LinuxCNC?

Thanks
Lyn

I don't think so!

Now that my installation has survived several reboots without self-destructing again I have started going through the documentation and find that LxCNC works quite differently to others that I've been reading about.

So, I need a parallel-port board like this: www.omc-stepperonline.com/cnc-breakout-b...outer-kit-st-v2.html which they say works with LxCNC, hooked up to the stepper drivers.

I also need a little servo to lift the pen. Robot shops etc have small servos that are only a fraction of the weight of a small stepper with a lead screw, but it's not clear how best to drive one.

Searching this forum for 'servo' produces nothing of relevance - can LxCNC handle a little servo of this type? If I've missed the relevant documentation would someone please point me to it.

Thanks for that. I found a mini stepper with lead screw and 38mm travel on ebay so bought it.

The other thing is that, because this T520 laptop doesn't have a parallel port, I was thinking of plugging an adaptor into either the expressCard slot or the serial port, or even a usb port. I suspect there may be pins missing in the output though. (I know laptops are frowned upon, but this is only to run a pen plotter for a few minutes now and then. And accuracy only needs to be within 1mm).

It would make sense to use ethernet if possible, but I still haven't found a starting point on the forum or the docs to clarify how to do this. Has it been documented somewhere?

Thanks for laying that out.

I think the best way forward for this current project with the pen plotter will be to use the java Universal Gcode Sender along with a usb cable.

The next project will be for a far more substantial machine, for which I will come back to LxCNC and choose dedicated hardware to suit the job in hand.

In the meantime I will contribute any gcode conversion scripts I write once they have been properly proved in use.

Cheers.

i woudt like to ask you
what is the main use of it
drawing things
cutting mask
engraving
the rig you setup is mainly universal corrdinate
but as i see no z only in out

you can with the arduino LOW precision do all
there is Estlcam on the market
it offers a all out board 35USD
woudt be worth to get a view