Wall Chess

The final project will be made of translucent plastic to accommodate LED backlighting. However, I decided to invest a little time to build a foam core model. It has really helped me judge the right aesthetic size proportions.

Note how shallow the knick-knack shelves are. This is important so the shelves would not obscure the chess men when viewing the board from above or below.

Scott, suggested that maybe strings would be simpler than rack/pinion and threaded rods. I'm considering all options. Thanks Scott!

I have not figure out how to apply the string and pulley concept to pick up and move the chess pieces. I thought I could use threaded rod to skewer a case that holds each chessmen, but then I realized that to actually pull it off the shelf, I need yet another mechanism to slide the box in the Z direction. Grr!

Scott's video:

Originally, I thought it would be exactly like a 3D printer with a pincher instead of hot end, but since we won't need sub-milimeter accuracy, we should be able to simplify it.

Here's my first draft. Motors would be cheap $5 geared stepper motors from China. Driven via some h-bridge mosfet by an ESP8266.

X axis is a rack and pinion with static rack on the top of the shelf, Y is the usual threaded rod, and Z is another rack-pinion to "scoop up" the chess piece.

What do you think?