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A New Drawing Machine

I’ve been designing a new drawing machine that is inspired by turntables. You know, those old-fashioned devices that old people used to listen to music…

I’ve made some progress on the electronics so far, and the controls will most likely consist of two potentiometers to control two stepper motors, and there may or may not be a servo involved for the pen lifting. (And yes, two steppers and a servo are sort of the common elements of many drawing machines.)

While many of my drawing machines are cobbled together with bits of wood and hot glue, I’m going to attempt to actually design this one. I’ve been looking at a number of turntables for design ideas, and wow, some of those things are just beautiful! Some examples below…

Turntable

Turntable

Turntable

Turntable

Wood Turntable

Belt Drive

I’ve started to collect other images/links over on a Pinterest board. Some are just interesting machines or mechanisms, but a lot of them are turntables or drawing machine related.