This is a cable driven drawing machine I constructed for the Telus Spark Science Centre in Calgary, Alberta in 2013. The clients requirements were to build a drawing machine that wouldn’t require maintenance or consumables. It self homes every morning, and as of May 2024, its total run time is 2,146 days (its been running 24/7 for the past year)
It uses LinuxCNC with a custom coded kinematics engine to move the motors and drag the head through sand. Control and gCode is identical to a standard CNC router. There is a Python automation script that cycles through the drawing and erase programs.