Introducing an Arduino based 2d wire-bending machine
Introducing
an Arduino based 2d wire-bending machine
Have you ever imagined building a 2D wire-bending machine?
If not, you should think about it because it's really that simple. In this
article, we are going to build our own Arduino-based 2D wire bending machine in
order to solve the problem of wire routing and retrieval.
Working with metal wires takes a lot of time and skill. This can be an
effective way to store your wires or just to make them more beautiful.
Introduction
The 2D wire bending machine is a tool used to bend wires
into different shapes. Basically, the wire is inserted into the machine and
then shaped into the desired form. It can bend different kinds of wires with
multiple applications, such as decorative lighting, hoisting devices, etc.
What materials
were required?
The
first step in building a machine is gathering all the required materials.
·
Bracket
for NEMA17 stepper motor
·
Jumpers
·
Screws & bolts
·
Bearing
·
Brass wire
·
Acrylic board
for a base
·
3D printed parts
All the 3D-printed parts are PLA material. You
can use Robu 3D
printed service to print these parts. Here you will find all the 3D-printed parts
used in this project.
1.
Wire holder
2.
Roller
Arduino Nano
The Arduino Nano is a small, complete, and
breadboard-friendly board based on the ATmega328. Each of the 14
digital pins on the Nano can be used as an input or output, using pin Mode (),
digital Write (), and digital Read () functions. They operate at 5 volts.
The Arduino software has a serial monitor which enables
simple data to be sent and received from the Arduino board. The RX and TX LEDs
on the board will flash when data is being communicated between the FTDI chip
and USB connection to the computer.
Arduino Nano
A4988 driver is used to drive many NEMA 17 steppers
motor. The A4988 is rated to drive up to 2A
per coil with adequate heat sinks and airflow, and different NEMA 17 motors
will have different maximum current requirements, so we must ensure that the motors
we are using don’t require more than 2A of current.
A4988 driver
Stepper
motors are so named because they rotate in steps. It is used for the machines requiring precise position control. Stepper Motor Drivers allows the motor's
position to be controlled to move or to remain in a single position. Here we
use a NEMA17 stepper motor. It provides 0.26N-m of torque at 0.4A current per phase.
A lithium-ion battery is a type
of rechargeable battery. Lithium-ion batteries are used for portable
electronics, consumer electronic goods and electric vehicles. Here
we used Orange ISR 18650 Li-Ion 1500mAh
7.4V 2S1P Protected Battery. Lithium-ion
battery provides 7.4V in storage mode and 8.4V in full charge mode. To know
more about Li-Ion batteries you can refer to https://robu.in/working-of-lithium-ion-battery/.
lithium-ion battery
How to
build the machine?
Now, we are going to show you how to build a simple Arduino-based
2D wire bender machine.
Take an Acrylic board
for a base and mount both stepper motors on it using a stepper motor bracket
and screw. You can use wooden board or any other board for base.
Next mount the bender head on the stepper motor shaft.
let's build a wire feeder to feed brass wire in machine. Place
the wire guide on the front of the feeder motor frame and fix it to the motor
using nuts.
Install the feeding gear.
Feeder and bender are connected
with a bending plate. This is a 3D printed plastic bending plate. You can
use metal bending plate.
A wire must initially be straightened before it can be bent. Straightener
consists of 7 rollers where 4 rollers on top and 3 rollers on bottom. It can be
pressed against each other to provide the proper tension for the wire.
Additionally, it stops the wire from twisting when it is bent.
Start with assembling the wire straightener system. I
used a bearing of diameter 3 mm. Press the bearing into the plastic roller.
Attach the bed and top frame with screws to each roller. Place the
top frame on the bed frame using the four rollers.
Next, attach the wire holder to the end of the machine using screws. As the name suggests
wire holder is just a simple cylinder that holds the wire.
Here machine assembly is nearly complete.
Additionally, the machine must be wired to the controller
electronics. For this you can refer circuit diagram as shown in image.
Connection
for 2D wire bender
Here we use Arduino nano with two A4988
stepper motor drivers.
A4988 driver module is use to drive Nema17 stepper motor. I have use Li-Ion
2500mAh 7.4V battery power supply to
power Arduino and stepper motor.
Code
Now, we can proceed to Arduino code.
You can find the complete code here.
Here two stepper variables are defined feeding stepper motor and
bending stepper motor.
Serial communication is initiated
at 9600 baud rates in setup function
Suppose you need to make a triangle
of 20mm side length, open the serial monitor and type 1,20, and press enter.
here 1 means we are selecting a triangle from
five shape list and 20 is the triangle’s side length.
If you want to make a
rectangle of sides 10 x 20 mm so you enter 3,20,40
so that a=3, b=20, c=40
The first number is for choosing the shape, and the number after
the comma is for side length.
How to
use
Connect the power supply to the system and the USB cables between
the PC and Arduino.
Open the Arduino IDE software and launch the serial monitor
immediately you will receive a message to input the data.
Wire comes from the wire holder
first through the set of straightener rollers. The wire should only be pressed
into the rollers. After that, the feeder processes it. Adjust the position of
the feeding gear.
The most difficult part of this project was to make
the feeder and push the wire forward. We used 0.7mm brass wire before but it
didn't work because the extruder didn't support it. Later we shifted to 1mm
brass and printed a custom roller to push the wire forward. we also made some changes
in the nozzle as it was breaking in sometimes.
The Arduino-based 2d wire bender machine is a great way to create
2d shapes out of wire. It is easy to use and can be controlled by a computer.
The machine is perfect for creating shapes that need to be precise.
To explore more about the 2d wire bender you can refer youtube
video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxVf7H30f2E.
I hope you found this article
to be helpful, and if you have any questions, please feel free to ask them in a
comment below!
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