Wooden Nickel Engraver Update
I got a chance to do some work into this project and I made some progress.
The X,Y mechanism is a free standing H-Bot. Here is a bottom view. You can see the Y home switch and the bottom of the servo to control the nickel.
Here is a top view of the mechanism. The yellow clamp piece opens partially to create a platform (ledge) for the nickel. This slides under the nickel feed tube and a nickel drops in. The bed is extra wide, so there is always something supporting the nickels in the feed tube.
The servo then clamps the nickel by pushing the tang on the yellow clamp piece into the nickel. Once the engraving is complete, the clamp completely retracts, removing the ledge. The nickel falls through into a hopper that is accessible from the front. This allows for a fully automated process and you don’t need to open the machine.
Here it is with a nickel in the clamp.
I have a temporary enclosure for testing. This supports the XY mech. You can see the nickel feed tube and the laser module support bracket. Currently it is open and a little larger than necessary to make it easy to test. It will eventually be cleaned up and get an access door with a window.
The next step is to work on the firmware. I plan to use Grbl in Core XY mode. I need to add a way to control the servo and figure out some commands to control the nickel handling.
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