What Can You Do With The Yora Draw?

YoraHome has brought two new machines to market over the last couple of months.

The beast - the YoraHome SilverBack Benchtop CNC 6060.

And the Yora Draw Professional Writing & Drawing Robot.

Bigger is better? Well, I’ll be honest and say I do want the SilverBack and will get one, but it's expensive and massive, so that comes with a few issues over where I will find room for it…But I will!

Then there’s the Yora Draw, a small machine and nowhere near as expensive, but what can it do? If you’ve looked at it briefly, you might be under the impression it’s just a printer, I intend to show you a few of the things it can do.

When it arrived, I eyed the box suspiciously for a week before I got up the nerve to build another machine. Well more fool me, this is the easiest build possible!

You attach the machine arm, by slotting it over the bolts on the carriage on the machine base, hand-fasten the nuts, plug in the wires and tra-daaaah! Load the software from the USB stick following the instructions when to turn on the machine, and it's ready.

How to use the included software

The software is quite simple to use, once you get used to the options available.

The House symbol is how you open the Control settings, start, stop, speed, position, etc.

Clicking on # Canvas opens the screen where you can adjust the size of the working area.

And the Canvas background.

This is a personal choice as to what you prefer.

To return to the main workspace, click on the double arrow.

How to import and manipulate images

To start, you can load images from the Gallery – the image symbol. The pre-loaded images will let you try out the machine to see what kind of pens, pencils or markers work with what kind of image.

Clicking on an image. It will load it onto the Canvas – the work area.

Right-click on the image on the Canvas to open the image menu and select Edit.

Or double-click on the image.

On this screen you can adjust the size (keep the lock closed to maintain proportions).

You can also change the draw method – Line to Line, Z Line, Dots or Outline Cutting and the line thickness.

Click OK to return to the main screen and right click on the image.

Here you can set the Origin Position, the default on this machine, is top left corner, (you will notice a grey square designating position) – as opposed to Easel that most people use with the Yora CNC Carving Machine 3018-Pro, which has its origin, (zero point) in the bottom left.

Clicking on the required option.

It moves the image to where you choose.

You can also choose to start from the centre.

This has however only moved the machine origin.

To move the image to the centre, right-click and click Center.

How to combine images

You can also combine images on one workspace, just click on your second image and it will appear.

You can decide on which is drawn first, using the Layer / Draw Order.

How to choose how the image is drawn

You can choose how you want the image to be drawn from the 4 options.

I laid out the 4 images to see any differences.

Click on the House image for the Control screen.

How to load your writing tool

At this point, click Go Origin and you will see where the drawing will start from and you need to load the writing/drawing tool of your choice and set the distance from the tip to the work surface to approx. 2–3 mm.

Before pressing start, you can try Preview to see where the edges of the design will be.

As the drawing is done, the lines change from red to black.

This is how it came out.

Line to Line (top left) came out clearest, Z line (top right) not much different, a bit paler, Dots (bottom left) nothing, Outline Cutting (bottom right) quick, clear but only does outside edges of shapes.

You can use your own images as well. Click on the file icon to open your computer to choose an image, and click Open.

I tried a 3D style image.

You can see where I placed the 4 small magnets to hold the piece of paper in place as well.

Comparative size of the Yora Draw to the Yora 6550

Just to give you a real idea of the size of the Yora Draw, this is it sat in the middle of my Yora 6550.

So, it works, what can you do with it?

What can you do with the Yora Draw?

Personalised Books

One of my first ideas was to make a personalized colouring book, with a ring-bound blank notebook you can put in whatever pictures you choose.

Then personalize the front cover with the name etc.

Business Christmas Cards

I’d also had a discussion with someone about Business Christmas Cards and how expensive it is to have them printed – you know what I mean, the card that arrives and says “xyz company would like to thank you for your custom this year and to wish you a very Merry Christmas”. But I thought rather than try to find a Christmas card to do it on, I could even do the card design as well.

Using the text option and changing pens allowed me to write the interior in silver and gold – fine tip metallic Sharpie style pens work brilliantly for this kind of thing. It even looks like it is hand-written.

Acrylic Light-Up Displays

Acrylic has been a nightmare for many people with lasers and engravers, HA! Have a look at what an ultra-fine point Sharpie can do with the Yora Draw.

Leather Jewelry

Using some additional tape to hold it down, I tried a leather bracelet.

Again the metallic markers worked perfectly.

Wood

How about wood? More tape holds it firmly in place.

Just think of the possibilities with this!

Adding a Laser to the Yora Draw

Not content with drawing with lots of different tools on lots of different materials, it is very simple to add a laser to the setup as well. You change the type of machine by clicking on the Menu icon left-hand icon on the top right.

Then click on Machine Type.

This opens the Machine Type box, click on the dropdown menu and choose Laser Engrave Machine.

The laser mount can only accept the 3.5W or 5.5W adjustable focus lasers by the way. You can use the inbuilt laser function of the Yora Draw software or use LaserGRBL or Lightburn.

And look what it can do with a 5.5W firstly on cork.

Then, on a mirror.

But, where this little machine really came into its own, was doing a photograph and yes I used the one of my daddy racing again.

Using Fabric Markers with the Yora Draw

I was waiting for some fabric paint markers to arrive to try something else and when they got here I was so glad I got them to try.

I found that putting something inside the fabric bag to hold it tight worked well. As you can see on the photograph, positioning can be a bit of an art, however using the preview will show you where it is going to go before you start.

Fingers crossed and away it went.

You can get a bit creative with how you are holding the fabric down too.

Conclusion

The Yora Draw can do writing, you can even get it to replicate your own handwriting via a phone app.

You can import SVG files from Inkscape in different layers to draw different coloured lines and more and more.

I thought the possibilities were big before, but now they seem to be endless.

Another thing to consider is how big the items that you’re going to laser engrave are?

Do you need a 60x50 cm working area with the YoraHome CNC Laser Engraving Machine 6550?

Or a 30x18 cm with the YoraHome CNC Carving and Laser Engraving Machine 3018-Pro. Or even a 30x36 cm with the extension?

And I haven’t even talked about the massive 60x60 cm on the YoraHome SilverBack Benchtop CNC 6060 that can be extended to a 1x1m workspace.

Or would the Yora Draw Professional Writing & Drawing Robot, this neat little machine that has an A4 size workspace (almost the same as letter size in USA) work for you?

I am really impressed by what it can do and for its size and price, IT IS BRILLIANT.

Get yourself the Yora Draw. You wouldn’t need to take up so much room at home, you’ll make yourself more popular with your spouse and family by making things for them and not needing a massive space to do it in.