I’ve decided to use an Eggbot control board, the EiBotBoard, to drive my polar plotter.
Not for any particularly wonderful reason. The board costs right at $50, which is the cost of an Arduino uno R3 ($30) plus an Adafruit Motor Shield ($20).
It seems the software to drive a polar plotter already exists for the Arduino / motor shield combo. Eggbot board, not so much.
So I’m looking at the same cost and more work to use the Eggbot board. But hey, if it was too easy it wouldn’t be fun :). I like the form factor of the EiBotBoard and if I can get it working as a polar plotter I can add a little back to the community.
I ended up buying the EiBotBoard from Sparkfun, the stepper motors from Pololu (on black friday sale for $14 each), the power wart from Adafruit.
The motor mounts, filament spools, and gondola I’ll download from Thingiverse and print them myself.
I’ve decided on the following parts:
I’ll probably download and print a few different styles of gondolas and see if I like any of them better than the others.
Progress is being made ….