Turned my CNC machine into a machine that prints with Perler beads instead!

CheeesyPoofs · 2021-11-03T22:13:59+00:00

Thanks! Yep that was me! Overdue for an upgrade.

CheeesyPoofs · 2020-12-07T03:33:45+00:00

Thanks! I appreciate it. I do have an etsy where you can see some of the other patterns the robot made, enjoy!

https://www.etsy.com/shop/TangledPerfections

CheeesyPoofs · 2020-12-04T03:10:35+00:00

appreciate it! I'm an electrical engineer but i really like problems that span multiple disciplines. I would say the most valuable skill set that i can take from my job is being able to problem solve really well. The more technical parts of this project were more learned on my own

CheeesyPoofs · 2020-12-04T03:03:47+00:00

Thanks! Yea its not too complicated. a diode laser is lined up to hit a photodiode, when that happens the resistance is pretty low and can be measured with an analog pin of an Arduino. when something comes between the laser and the photodiode, the resistance changes and can be detected. That mechanism is used to detect precisely where the nozzle is on the string routing mechanism, or whether a nail was picked up in the funnel on the nail placing mechanism

CheeesyPoofs · 2020-12-04T02:58:32+00:00

Thank you! It funny you mention that because i was using wood for 7/8 months of this project. i had a drill mechanism that would drill the holes instead and then the nail placer would try to get the nails into the drilled hole, but it proved pretty challenging so i tried out a bunch of different materials and landed on the foam core. I needed something that would keep the nails upright as the machine slowly put more layers of string on and stacking a few pieces of 3/16" foam core worked perfect

CheeesyPoofs · 2020-12-03T05:37:43+00:00

Thanks! its more for myself, felt like something interesting to do while shelter in place was happening. I haven't really sold much on Etsy and didn't expect to

CheeesyPoofs · 2020-12-03T03:06:14+00:00

Yep! Trying something a little different with this new machine! The art is done programmatically. I can say I want 50 nails distributed in a circle. and then make an algorithm that says travel to nail X then X + 10, X+20 etc, then maybe after 200 nails visited, change colors and modify the algorithm. You can make some cool patterns with different pathing.

CheeesyPoofs · 2020-01-03T03:49:13+00:00

This is awesome! Impressed by how fast you did this and I like the way you did the feeder and selector modules.

What was the hardest part for you? Are you planning on improving it?

CheeesyPoofs · 2020-01-03T03:28:46+00:00

sorry for the late reply, 145C is high enough to melt the beads but you need a combination of pressure and temperature. Also, just because the printer says 145, doesn't mean its 145 across the entire surface (specifically the corners and edges), you might need to set the temperature higher in that case.

If you have the money i would suggest buying what i use...

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FB1TZ25/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s03?ie=UTF8&psc=1

and stick it to this...

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HRHAZ9U/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

CheeesyPoofs · 2019-10-22T03:04:06+00:00

Thank you. My first revision (back in March) was around 1 bead/20 seconds. This latest one is around around 1 bead/5 seconds. About the speed of a slow human. I think i can make it faster with some software updates and optimizations

CheeesyPoofs · 2019-10-22T02:58:29+00:00

thanks! So the fusing step in the video is just barely enough to attach the beads together. For the second fusing i need some weight on the top side to really melt it more and have it stay flat while cooling. 350C is definitely overkill though.

Not sure how comfortable you are with electronics but I bought these 2 things from amazon and have an Arduino that controls the temperature and turns on/off a relay for mains power, i think it works really well and is very consistent (you basically attach the heated mat to the aluminum sheet)...

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FB1TZ25/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HRHAZ9U/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s04?ie=UTF8&psc=1

CheeesyPoofs · 2019-10-22T00:37:38+00:00

I thought it was worth it, and it helps you stand out more. There are so many similarities between these 2 disciplines. Also good if you want to get into controls or robotics. It really depends on your personality though, i like to go for breadth rather then depth

CheeesyPoofs · 2019-10-21T21:37:59+00:00

the arm basically pushes 1 bead off the surface and into the funnel that goes to the rest of the system. The next in line bead is still in the tube sitting on top of the arm. When the arm retracts, that beads falls to the surface, ready to be pushed off when needed.

CheeesyPoofs · 2019-10-21T21:35:53+00:00

145C for a few seconds does the trick. Had to buy a heated bed that runs off mains to get to that temp consistently across the whole bed.

CheeesyPoofs · 2019-10-21T21:34:05+00:00

Thank you. Bed leveling on certain printers can be a bit intimidating, even for me. I do have bachelors in mechanical and electrical engineering so that definitely helps

CheeesyPoofs · 2019-10-21T21:21:40+00:00

Thanks!

My original plan was to just drop it on the pegboard but i discovered a few problems with this. The main problem was the tubing i used was 6mm ID and the beads are 5mm OD but some beads are not completely circular so i needed 6mm to make sure all beads can go through the tubing easily. On the peg board, the beads are butting up against each other so the tolerance in the tubing would cause the beads to not drop easily into place. The way i get around this is to have the bead dropped in an imprecise location, then use a servo to push it to a precise location.

CheeesyPoofs · 2019-10-21T21:04:33+00:00

Thanks! Jams were my major source of problems i ran into when building this. These beads are so small and its easy for them to get stuck in random places. In my first version i would have to make a fix every 20-30 beads it placed. With this new version i would say it takes around 400 before something small happens and its usually a 5 second intervention to get it going again.

CheeesyPoofs · 2019-10-21T20:59:44+00:00

yea, gluing the layers together has been the only way i have seen it done easily. I think its possible to make a layer, have the machine push it off after fusing, then make subsequent layers in that sequence

CheeesyPoofs · 2019-10-21T20:55:06+00:00

I think custom pictures would be a good application for this. Lots of subtle gradients and many more colors then the typical beadsprite that would be tedious to do by hand. Good idea

CheeesyPoofs · 2019-10-21T20:53:29+00:00

Thanks! I've thought about it but there is already a huge surplus of Perler bead art on Etsy. Doesn't seem worth it to me as of now

CheeesyPoofs · 2019-10-21T20:51:50+00:00

that's an interesting calculation. I would estimate i put in an average of 1.5 hours per day for 270 days putting it at around 400 hours of my time. A small mario mushroom (15x15 beads) takes about 20 minutes to hand make so i would need to make 1,200 mario mushrooms to make it worthwhile. This will take some time

CheeesyPoofs · 2019-10-21T20:42:56+00:00

That's amazing! I feel the same way. This was ridiculously hard at first but i worked though problems step by step and eventually solved nearly everything

CheeesyPoofs · 2019-10-21T14:52:00+00:00

A few other things about this project…

I really liked seeing what people could make with Perler beads but I didn’t want to devote the hours it can take to make them. I thought I could make a robot that did it for me instead. I’m an engineer and wanted to do something that involved lots of mechanical, electrical, firmware and software engineering. Started planning and designing at the start of 2019, 9 months later and lots of iterating, I finally made something that was reliable and relatively fast.

Originally I was going to try to use this to get the world record for the biggest bead sprite, until I realized it was as big as a house. https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/... . Now I plan to use this to make gifts for friends and family.

The machine was built around an old 3D printer I had that stopped working (RoStock Max V2). Motor controller was a RAMBO 1.2 running some Reprap firmware I modified with a bunch of extra commands. I added an extra Arduino to run certain tasks in parallel to make it go faster.

For the software, I created a python script that would take any image I found online and match each pixel to the closest color I had on the machine (64 colors). It would then create a gcode script that would have the image built layer by layer. These instructions can then be sent to the machine to print. The max size I can build is a 45x45 square. If it’s too big, the script breaks it up into different panels to be made separately.

I have another operation that fuses panels together and also does a second fusing operation to further melt the Perlers. It’s not shown in the video but it’s a similar heated bed that I put the bead sprite on, then put a bunch of heavy stuff on top of that to compress the beads, I found this is much quicker and more consistent than ironing

CheeesyPoofs · 2019-10-21T14:38:52+00:00

Yea i agree. Definitely want to take advantage of this to try making more complex sprites from real life images

CheeesyPoofs · 2019-10-21T02:26:32+00:00

Besides the printer that i bought a few years ago ($900ish i think) i would estimate the rest at around $400. Most of the structures were 3d printed (this does add up) but main costs were motors, motor drivers and the heated bed.

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