Picasso : CNC plotter

Abstract: In today’s society, CNC machines are used for various purposes. In this project, a CNC plotter is created to analyze how the performance of the plotter differs when using two different motors: a DC motor controlled by a potentiometer in the horizontal direction and a stepper motor in the vertical direction. A CNC plotter is built and used to do tests in order to answer the research question. The results show that a DC motor with a potentiometer is more precise than a stepper motor and the mean value of the relative errors in the vertical direction is always higher. The values differ with 1 percentage point to 3 percentage points. The difference in the performance of the two motors depend on several factors and one of the main factors is considered to be the fact that the stepper motor sometimes skips steps.