AUTOMATED INK : CNC Tattooing Robot

Sammanfattning: The art of tattooing has been around for centuries in human history and tattoos are still very popular in today’s society. Tattoos serve as a way to, for example, express people’s personalities, religious beliefs, or culture, and its growing popularity may lead to the need for more technological and automated alternatives. In this project, a computer numerical control plotter was built to investigate the possibilities of automation of tattooing, and the project focused on the possible limitations of performance and safety in an automated tattooing machine. The machine was built using two stepper motors connected with an H-Bot configuration that moved a gantry in the X and Y directions. A third stepper motor connected to a lead-screw was mounted on the gantry enabling movement in Z direction. Several tests were conducted in order to examine the performance of the machine. These tests were done using ink and whiteboard markers to draw different geometries on paper and the subject’s arm. The results showed limitations in the size of the tattoo as the machine could only draw on a flat surface and therefore had trouble adjusting to the uneven surface of an arm. The results also showed that the machine had some trouble drawing rounded geometries, such as circles, which meant that the circles, to a certain extent, got an elliptical appearance. It did however draw straight lines accurately. The main factors of this were believed to be a combination of sub-optimal assembly and the stepper motors being too weak to optimally operate with the H-Bot configuration. The safety risks were considered restricted when using a limit switch sensor and carefully calibrating the speed and movement in the Z-axis.