CNC Router Drawing Robot Kit, Pen Plotter & Handwriting Machine，XYZ Plotter iDraw Hand Writing Robot Kit Open Source for Maker, Working Area A4

Coming from 3d printing and building a Voron 2.4, I wasn't expecting much of a learning curve. That wasn't the case but don't let that scare you. The documentation is non existent but the machine runs grbl 1.3a.20210424. The pen moves on the Z axis just like the print head on a 3d printer but it is inverted. Moving toward the bed is moving in the positive direction. I think some machines use the spindle commands to control the pen but that is not the case with this machine. The Z axis is spring loaded meaning that you can control the amount of pressure on the pen by pushing past 0. This also means that need to disable the step idle timeout with $1=255. Without that the spring will pull the pen back up as soon as the move finishes.

UPDATE: It stopped turning on after about a week of use. Checked all the connections. They were kind enough to send me a replacement. The replacement was DOA. I've returned both for a full refund. Super easy to assemble. I wanted a robotic writer for my Christmas cards and letters to clients. This is super easy to assemble. The software is about 70% there. The drawings come out like a dot matrix printer. It just draws it horizontally line by line. Takes for ever. Not sure how to get it to plot out a drawing so it doesn't take an eternity to make a simple drawing. I suppose a CAD engineer can figure this out. The "handwriting" fonts it comes with are not good. It looks like it was done by a 5th grader. The software/website doesn't allow you to upload your handwriting. Perhaps it's a feature in future versions. All the documentation says to go to the company website and download the handwriting app for android. When you try, it doesn't exist - at least the app doesn't exist. Not on their website or on Playstore. So don't expect to see your handwriting or signature on paper with this. This product's documentation is poor. About what you expect for a Chinese company that is too cheap to hire westerners to write the instructions. You do have to calibrate the device to work with each page. Not 100% intuitive. It's taken me some time to figure it out. Being an American, I didn't have a metric ruler in my house. I would suggest you purchase one to help calibrate this device to the exact dimensions of your paper. The youtube instructions are wanting. A forum exists. You can't log in - the "create new user" has been disabled. There is no email or support link. If it doesn't work... too bad.

I have a need to add QR Codes to mats for framed photos and I aIso wanted to add return addresses to the backs of the envelopes that I use for correspondence cards. Looking through the options, this seemed like a good option to try. Assembly took no more than 10 minutes. There are lots of videos on YouTube that show how to put this together. The gantry that carries the Z motion and the pen slips on easily and is secured by 4 knurled nuts that are hand tight. Getting the software up and running took a bit of fiddling since the same software is used for several different Bachin products. My controller speaks GRBL 1.3b G-Code and one of the windows allows you to pass G-Code commands directly to the robot. This helped me get the software to the correct settings and check things out since I could manually send commands to the robot. Build quality is pretty good and I don't think I could build a robot for a lot less money and the time saved was worth the few extra dollars. My version of the Bachin software does have a QR Code encoder, but I opted to import my QR Codes as png files through GIMP so I can have more control over the size and the frame. This fits my needs so I give it a five but people who aren't comfortable with G-Code, stepper motors, limit switches etc... may struggle a bit. On the other hand, if you want to learn how stepper based CNC systems work with G-code, this is a straightforward platform to learn. If your patient, you will be able to get it to work.

It is a very cool base product. I'd say more like 3.5 stars. I've always wanted something like this for my advertising campaigns. I've spent hours trying to make decent handwriting fonts. However, the software that comes with it is barely functional. Seriously. I read the reviews and thought it would t be that bad. It is. Basically, it allows you to write in a few "meh" handwriting formats, create your own with a dubious direct download app, aranage things on a page, and import svg files. There is a gallery of useless images for the likely consumers of this thing. Editing is very basic -- changing strictly proportional size and allowing rotation in divisions of 90 degrees is all you get. Anyway, this is a super handy product for someone who does handwriting campaigns, but with the out of box limitations you won't get very far with it. To actually make it useful for a multiletter batch, you've got to be pretty tech savvy and able to find your own solutions. Overall, this thing is really only good out of the box for someone who needs to write the exact same text over and over, or someone who does a lot of things like book signings. It has potential if they put some effort into the software and created a mail merge feature from something like a word doc, but unless you are willing to do a lot of diy workarounds then it is little more than a toy if you are not in the above target market.

I found set-up was very easy. Had a couple of "glitches" at first with my paper but put tape down so that I knew where the paper was to go each time and this helped a lot. Machine will occasionally stop working but this may be because I'm using it so much. I just close down the program and open up again and I'm good to go!!!

Gute Maschine bin sehr zufrieden

El producto llegó bien empaquetado y protegido. Realmente fue muy fácil instalar el brazo y las conexiones. Ahora solo hay que ponerse a estudiar los tutoriales para sacarle provecho al software. Desde hace 5 años tengo la axi draw machine, y ésta de bachin me dejó mucho más satisfecha.