CNC Egg painting Machine – EggBot

Intro

I created my first eggbot in 2015, that was one of my first Arduino based projects and at that time it was extremely challenging for me. I got it working at least kind of, it wasn’t super precise and the construction was crappy. But I was and still am proud of this project because at that time without fancy tools like 3D printer or laser cutter I was able to build a working machine, using DIY methods and basic hand tools. That’s a great example of my journey in making stuff, looking back at where I was in 2015 and at where I am now (writing this in 2020 during the quarantine) it’s crazy to see how much I improved my skills and knowledge.

This version of eggbot (or CNC egg painter, or egg painting machine) finally works as I wanted my first version to work. Initial idea was to use 28BYJ48 stepper motors but because of high imprecision and play on the shaft, it wasn’t as precise as I wanted to so I redesigned the whole project to get it working with popular NEMA 17. To control everything I used Arduino UNO and A4988 stepper drivers. If you don’t have a laser cutter or a 3D printer you can still make this project! Here you can buy plywood and 3D printed parts manufactured in my workshop:

Parts

Part Quantity BangGood Aliexpress
Stepper Motor2https://bit.ly/2wzjgiahttps://bit.ly/34uJhf0
A49882https://bit.ly/2RzsqCxhttps://bit.ly/2V35a1P
Arduino1https://bit.ly/2yfu4lVhttps://bit.ly/2XwyijG
Power Supply1https://bit.ly/3b8hXWohttps://bit.ly/2Vrldp9
Breadboard1https://bit.ly/3b31qDmhttps://bit.ly/3encsWb
Servo1https://bit.ly/2xhNgj8https://bit.ly/3ceYcwF
Cablesa lothttps://bit.ly/34v8oyghttps://bit.ly/2Rw7eNM
M3 Screws and Nutsa lot

Video

Files

If you need a solid CAD file (.f3d) that you can modify and adjust to your needs you can find it here:

Buy EggBot CAD File

Below you can download all STL and DXF files to print on a 3D printer and cut on a laser cutter. There are two versions of all files, for Nema 17 and 28BYJ48. I don’t recommend using 28BYJ48 because as you can see in my video it’s not precise enough. Nema 17 works great and even though it’s slightly more expensive I think it’s worth it. If you want solid CAD files or .F3D file you can find that on my Patreon.

EggBot – Indystry.ccZIP with all STL and DXF files

[mailerlite_form form_id=2]

Laser parts have to be glued together with wood glue. Then you need to let it dry for some time, books are useful to apply pressure to the whole thing. After that, we can start assembling motors and 3D printed parts. For that we need some M3 screws and nuts. At the end, we will close all the electronics (Arduino with breadboard and stepper drivers) in the box on the bottom of the case.

Electronics

Programming

On the Arduino, we need to upload GRBL but firstly modify it a little bit. Firstly install GRBL in your Arduino IDE (just like any other Arduino library).

GRBL

Find library directory of your Arduino IDE (on windows that’s documents -> Arduino -> libraries. Go to GRBL folder and copy here files that from this Github page
GRBL PEN SERVO

Thanks to that we can use servo instead of stepper motor on the Z axis to lift the pen

To create drawing I am using Inkscape
To generate Gcode jscut is simple to use an online tool that will get you familiar with this kind of software before using a big CNC machine.
To control my Eggbot I will use CNCjs, I also use it to control Dremel CNC and in the future IndyMill.

And that’s it for my second version of eggbot project. I hope you like my construction, I am pretty proud of it to be honest. Clean design, works great and is quite inexpensive to build. Is there any reason not to love this machine 🙂
If you have any questions let me know in the comments of my YT video!

If you want to support my projects (Itw would be highly appriciated!) You can do it through patreon (link below). You can also support me through paypal!

Become a Patron!

Thanks for reading and happy making!!!