Over-Engineered Pen Holder? 

I had never thought of producing PCBs like this, and I love the fact that you are finding more and more uses for the same, base frame, and still working so hard on the Hypercube as a whole. Its nearly a year since you first showed it running! Happy (almost) Birthday Hypercube!

16:23 the felt marker polished the copper

One year later this post is still pretty instructive. Thank you so much for sharing your valuable experience.

I haven't etched in over two decades ... this is inspiring cheers.

The 'imprint' was just some cleaning of the copper surface done by the solvent that the pen has in it. Basically it the cleaner bits of copper.

I find it perplexing when someone's content is way better than the topic chosen.

A great reuse of surplus of parts and a good design. That's what I like most. Bravo.

I was thinking, "fuck, this could be really useful!" And then I realized that I already owned a laser printer

Turning a 3d printer into a 2d printer! Wait...

Two minutes in, my feeling is rails on the first one or another clamp at 90° on the second. I love how your solution took the both of best worlds, it's beautifully silly.

Would love to see an attachment for cutting too. Like vinyl cutting etc. Other ideas include a paste extruder and pick and place attachments. Great videos!

Those videos are getting more and more higher in quality, awesome!!

In the case of the retracting ball pen. A quick and dirty hack is to put the spring on the other side of the stop on the ink tube.

When I was a kid we had write 100 times of so same stuff as punishment. This will help so many kids with that!

Cool design but u really should think about some spring for example: bed spring or something similiar with less tension on other side.

eurgh this is so cool. i have no use for it, but watching it draw out the PCB traces was so cool

Just add a spring inside the pen at the top side and cut the refill tube a bit at the top and it will do the same job and literally you don't need to scratch your head anymore.

could have put a pair of springs above the bearings, as well. Just some light compression force. More prior planning, but no worries about the rubber band breaking or anything.

I know what we used when I was working with cnc the pen had a secondary spring and the casing held them and the pen cartridge so the pen casing was held with a set screw still allowing for odd surfaces

There are LM5UU and 5mm rods available quite cheap, most probably will work just the same while reducing weight and cost.

It looks like a breakout board with support circuitry for a Pic16F84 Micro-controller (Microchip). Cool Idea actually.

I’ve just made this and it works so well. Thanks for your great design.

i just shortened the the core of the pen and put the spring inside the pen on top so it can retract on pressure with very minimal wiggle :) this one is definitely over-engineered :)

idea: you can add small servo to lift pen holder up instead of using Z axis. With small circuit you can use any digital pin and replace all Z lines in g-code...or if your drivers take STEP and DIR pulses on input, then (with a little better circuit) it should be simple to connect servo to board instead of Z axis driver. But I guess people won't use this so often and seriously, so waiting some extra time for Z axis movement won't be that big problem :)

Man Ive been dying to make a blotter from my 3d printer. Love the idea of the rails, brilliant, keep making cool stuff.

its a good thing we invented the printer....

The board is just a simple dev board to make it easy to use a pic16f84a. The 16f84a is an older flash based pic chip. Microchip has a huge number of devices in their lineup.

Very interesting, I can't wait to see what you do next :-)

When I press x plus, plotter moves diagonally. Same for y axis. On pressing diagonal arrows, it moves in one direction.

In a word ... Genius.

bruh I straight up used a design that was opened and doesn't need to be locked in place, only with a few rubber bands which help it flex , the whole mech is also held in place with rubber bands whcih allow it to move up and down only.

the version with the screws work, by using a square opening istead of a round one. the sqare is split along its diagonal

Might be less weight on the moving part if the 8mm rods moved and the linear bearings were clamped to the mount.

the clean areas where probably from the Acid in the pens ink cleaning off the oxidation on the surface

why the fck did i watch this entire video

he be rollin down the street he be rollin to the beat

It would be interesting if you created a carriage mount that used neodymium magnets instead of screws for quick replacement

This is a nice design for holding the pen. I do not know if you are looking for other ideas... If you are then may I suggest a solder paste dispenser attachment? For a hint, look at Dave's (not going to mention his RU-vid channel out of politeness but it's that self-described crazy Aussie bloke) latest unboxing video where he got an automated SMD dispensing pen. An adapter for that on the Hypercube would allow the finished PCB to go back on the printer for placing the solder; this is an alternate to using a paste mask. AFAIK, I have not seen a 3D printer being used to dispense paste before. Oh, and the pen can also be used as a pick-n-place head, for placing SMT parts... but this requires a lot more gear to go onto the 3D printer. Just putting it out there as possible future extensions on the printer. Cheers, - Eddy

the example circuit that you used was Designed for a 2-sided pcb

16:21 I think it's just polished from the friction of the pen tip.

Use two of the C clamp styled ones in the format of the double screw clamp version, but offset them from each other so they take up the play from each other.

I wish they had multicolor pen for the xy plotters

this is the correct amount of engineering.

you need the locking mechanism placed on a rail that moves in the direction you require

It's an impressive pen holder.

I used duct tape...

This is a lovely design. I have just purchased a little desktop CNC and, based on your design, I have ordered the linear bearings and rods from China. Now, I have a couple of months before they arrive, to draw up the holder so it all fits my gear. Since I'm a machinist, I may make the rod mountings slightly more skookum on a metal lathe. There is NO such thing as over-engineered! :-)

Do you prefer Etch vs Engrave cutting the board away? All though both effective methods I personally thing engrave looks better and no need for mixing a solution

Great video. However all those unnecessary pen lifts would annoy me. i wonder if there's a way to filter them out of final G code

Simple and elegant. Love the design.

With two bearings that looks a bit overconstrained, it could probably be made simpler (and lighter, and less expensive, and more precise) with only one linear bearing.

perfect for writing christmas cards

You see a pen holder. I see a projectile launcher

You should make a version that accepts the standard brass bushings as well!

Why not make a longer or just two clamps to hold the pen? That thin plastic is is still wobbly.

Very nice, productive and worth to see video. Thanks for your effort.

Maybe i want play in those axes if i want to print handwriting so every letter is litlebit different

Wrap some tape around the thinner pens.

Next video on tech2c... Hypercube cnc milling machine for pcb making?!?!? :D Btw. LOVE the hypercube design!! Just started building one too!! Just waiting for the rest of the parts to arrive, and printing one of the last parts out on my fabrikator mini at the moment! :)

Milling heads are too noisy, heavy and vibrate a lot. Can you not install a laser head strong enough to vaporize the single layer of copper, but light enough to be manipulated by the x-axis?

Did you check out the magnetic tool changer for Ultimaker? You could apply a similar idea to Hypercube for dual extrusion and tools.

Hope you plan to make a milling attachment.

Why use linear rails and bearings. You could do one or two or L axis rails printed I a single for piece. The friction won't be a problem.

Awesome! Would love to see a recreated version customized for the Prusa Mini

Hi, nice video again. At the moment I'm using the toner transfer method to develop pcb's. But this technique seems much cleaner. The thing I noticed is that all video's using the direct ink to pcb method create pretty coarse traces. It would be interesting to see if it's possible to create for example 0.5 pitch traces with a finer marker. Maybe it's an idea to use a coarse pen like the 0.6 for copper pours and a finer one for the traces. Maybe this needs a dual pen setup, if replacing the pen mid process would mess up the alignment.

i wonder if adding a BL touch would help this at all... im guessing not.

Hi guys, I am new for 3d printer setting. While using this pen holder, I can not set Z,. Pen goes way down and damaging bed, can I get help here,, please

Hi thanks for sharing your work i love whate you do , i have a question about a GRBL ; is it possible to change or add somme subroutines to that code , for example reading a sensor value and send it back to the UGS, thanks in advance.

These videos always impress.

Purely genius. Can I use the same principle for a Micro Electric Hand Drill for PCBs? Rotating tool anyone?

Perfect design.

great design and application :)

I'm still waiting for the 5 axis cnc machine head attachment.

can i use Kicad instead of eagle? its a free open source software for PCB design. Thanks for the very nice video!

Wont be easier to use standard garber files then go through flatcam to get gcode???

Couldn't this be done using a single 3d printed part that clamps onto the pen and is designed with a flexible cantilever from the carriage to the pen clamp? That way it can flex enough to do the job of the linear bearings, rails, and spring in 1 part.

Amazing, thank you for sharing!

Necessity is the mother of invention...

Is it possible to order the finished linear bearing pen holder

Which software you use? I built the openbuild Acro CNC and I removed the laser and I will install your pen holder, I like the idea when the pen hits the paper I have _on my case_ 2 springs, anyway I tried a few software and so far none of them captivate me

How much more difficult would it be to use the print head from an inkjet printer and just use only one(1) nozzle for printing. There are now some reasonably inexpensive inkjet printers on the market that use a separate ink tank and transfers the ink through a very small tube similar to how some 3D printers melt the filament far from the print head thus reducing weight at the actual point of printing.

You probably could've printed the lm8uu's and the rods?

I wonder if one could use kicad as source for pcb to be cnverted..

Now the pen holder needs a bearing, so I can put an Xacto knife in it and turn it into a drag knife for cutting vinyl stickers.

You should make the world smallest 3d printer.

That's some great work! But it needs some LED lights lol :)

How about that design for the E3D design. To allow the head to be "touch-enabled bedleveling" like the roblox?

phenomenal DIY work.

Over-Engineered my ass. I would say designed right the first time. I would put springs above the linear bearings on the smooth rod.

thanks I found this really usefull. I recently bought have stepcraft cnc, and can modify this concept to fit my machine (in due time when my skill levels rise). I'm not familiar with the Hypercube. I was surprised that you didn't talk about drilling NC files. To my way of thinking the real benefit of using cnc to make home made pcb is that you can quickly and accurately drill all those holes.trying to get an idea of the process. Wondering if you would drill the holes first and then, use one of the holes as a registration point for plotting pen..so that everything aligns??

I like your pen holder design, but when you show the plotting of PCB, I don't understand why the pen moves up and down so many times, even when it is totally unnecessary, and when it is necessary to move the pen up why move it so much? Also, rapid moves should be done much faster. It would save you a lot of time. I mean, four minutes for plotting that tiny PCB? I can mill it in about 2 minutes... or less.

Ha, I just used an auto levelling sensor

Have you looked about the concept of a vee block and clamp as used by machinists? Bill

Did you always intend to use the HyperCube for these pen/laser/milling CNC designs you're doing now, or is this a fairly recent idea?

Why are people downgrading 3-d printers to 2-d printers. I don't get it?

how about a iris-style variable width guide bearing? ;D

Next time use a OSS EDA, like Kicad ;)

"To allow spring" Why not just install springs on the rods? I'm assuming the lack of springs is why but it would have been 10x better if you had.

did you finish the PCB? I'm really interested to see the rest of the process.

Why dont you put springs over the two rods?