etch a sketch

Finally, some progress on the etch a sketch machine.  After releasing the magical blue smoke from many poor transistors, i broke down and bought a motor control shield over the holidays.  Two roughly matched steppers salvaged from old printers attached to gears on the etch a sketch.


Straightforward at first, but mechanically tricky.  Theres a surprising amount of mechanical backlash, meaning that if you draw say 10mm in one direction, and then 10mm back, you dont quite end up where you started.  I tightened up the gearing by epoxying it to the etch a sketch shaft, and i'm doing some backlash correction in software.  Still not perfect, but getting there.

Eesh - the video compression makes it look horrid.  Heres a pic of the last frame so you can see the drawing.