Crazy dreams

[johnridley]

3D printer kit hasn't even arrived yet, and I've already thought about, and had dreams about building a computer controlled X-Y router platform. Really, for the accuracy you'd need to print signs (1mm or maybe a little better), you could slap something together in a weekend out of drawer slides. And if it could hold a router, or a felt tip pen, or a razor stylus, or anything else, it could do a lot of stuff.
The software would be the hard part but I bet there's already an OSS project that's done that bit.
This started as a G+ hangout discussion, but I'm afraid it could be a future project.

• Bob Wittig - http://buildyourcnc.com/default.aspx
  
  Nothing that I could find on software there, however.
  
• Todd Johnson - I started building a 3-axis carriage for a Dremel tool out of drawer slides and steppers back in 1983, but of course it eventually drifted off the project list about the time I finished building one stepper driver.
  I'll bet you will get farther than that. And of course as you say, there should be lots of software available these days.
  
• John Ridley - +Todd Johnson http://reprap.org/wiki/Plotting - not surprisingly, already been done. There's even already code to take gerber files and generate g-code, AND a printable, spring-loaded pen holder to mount in the carriage.