PC controlled toothbrush/dentifrice abrasion machine

A toothbrush/dentifrice abrasion machine was developed to use in dental research laboratory. The mechanism was designed as a hexagonal block driven by two stepping motors which move the mechanism in four directions. In order to control the stepping motors speed, position and direction commands or signals were generated by a software written in C Programming Language and then these commands were applied the stepping motor drives through parallel port of a personal computer. The toothbrush/dentifrice abrasion machine was finally used to measure different longevity of tooth brush. It was experimentally shown that the mechanism can be used for highly accurate position and speed applications.