Writing & Drawing

The robot does not get tired or grow weary
of reproducing identical designs.
As colored areas are obtained by juxtaposition and eventually crossing of lines, so the time to complete a plot varies as a function of the drawing itself: the more colored areas there are, the longer it will take. The theoretical resolution of AxiDraw is around 80 steps per mm, or 2032 steps per inch. Its precision of reproducing a design is around 0.1 mm at the lowest speed. Here various factors apply, notably the nature of the paper and the ink, the fineness of the point and pressure of the pen, which is not adjustable. The only force exerted is the mass of the pen, which may be increased if needed with a weight, for example a nut threaded onto the pen. Some elastics supplied with the device allow increasing the supporting force on the pen, but the manufacturer does not hide the long-term influence of such modifications on the life of the motor that activates the pen-holder.

Image format

If you’re afraid of only getting stereotyped
Designs, I recommend the video from Hansje
van Halem which this image is taken from.
It’s not necessary to know how to program to use AxiDraw. You only need to familiarize yourself with Inkscape which is similar to other vector drawing tools. You can import and convert to .svg format designs produced by other products, for example Autocad DXF or Adobe Illustrator.

Don’t forget that the speed of execution and the precision of the line can only progress one after the other without interference. To obtain optimal resolution, the trace speed must take into account the flow rate of the ink in the pen being used and the degree of absorption of the material used.

 
One of the 7 tabs of the command extension.
AxiDraw offers some options to accelerate or slow down the drawing speed, or an option of constant speed. The device itself cannot make these adjustments, but the user must find the best settings by successive trials.

Gradients are possible, but only if they are obtained by means of vectorial techniques.
For text, any vectorial character font can be used (truetype, opentype).

For electronics use, using a permanent marker to draw circuits on copper-plated board is an option, but I don’t see any advantages there in producing PCBs by such conventional methods. However, it would be more original to draw with conductive ink on non-conventional materials, for example leather or glass. Everything is a question of imagination and patient experimentation. And for that, the AxiDraw user guide will be an invaluable help.