Sometimes art projects require many pieces of material that can be used to construct an item. Imagine trying to make a mosaic from construction paper, but realizing that you will need hundreds of small strips of the same length. Luckily, YouTuber Mr Innovative has come up with a solution in the form of an Arduino-based paper cutter. This project follows from a recent one where he assembled an automatic wire cutting machine that can handle up to four different colors simultaneously.
The base of Mr Innovative’s design is a block of wood with two parallel rails running on each side. A NEMA 17 stepper motor is located just beside one of these. It has a gear that rotates and meshes with a set rubber rollers that extend the entire width of your machine. Another rail supports the cutting head (a razor-blade), and is moved back and forth by another stepper motor.
Both motors are driven by a custom control board that houses a pair of A4988 motor drivers and an Arduino Nano. An I2C-enabled screen sits at the front, and it displays a simple GUI with which the user can select both the length of each paper strip and how many should be cut.
You can view this project in more detail in Mr Innovative’s demo/build video below.
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