Things are moving slowly but at a steady pace, but between a very demanding job, and actually spending some time with my family it is hard to do any better. However any free time that I can get hold of, is to advance this project.

This is my latest achievement, and I finally completed the principal part of the XY plane movement. You can recognize the holonomic drive system in the middle, and an array of 4 mice around it, in an (almost) perfect square.

Everything is standing on screws for easy adjustment. This is crucial, since the focus on the mouse optics is very narrow (just a couple of millimeters), and they need to be adjusted to be very close to the surface of the XY plane (bottom side).

Things are not as compact as I would wish but since time is very short, I am aiming for an easier build rather than the most efficient prototype. The main disadvantage is that the XY plane will need to be much larger that the actual build surface. This is due to the fact that it has to be over the wheels and mice all of the time, for every point that can be reached by the print head. In sum I need right now an extra 10 cm around the usable work area.

Also since the XY plane will be much bigger that the area defined by the wheels I need some kind of support for it not to tip over. I still have to build this support to start testing the performance of my drive system with optical feedback.