Flatbed printer

Graham Stabler

Here is my first step towards making a 3D printer, getting an inkjet to print over a flat bed.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=a14zELKPw8M

The printer is still controlled by its own hardware however the paper feed motor no longer does anything but spin and I take the encoder feed from it to sync a stepper motor to move the gantry. The propeller also detects when it should sync and when it should not!

Graham

Steve Joyner

This is really cool!· I need to set up an ink jet to print on cans for creating movie props.· Any ideas?

Beau Schwabe

Steve,

Move the print head in one dimension (current hardware), and rotate the can with the paper feed roller rather than feeding paper.

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Beau Schwabe

IC Layout Engineer
Parallax, Inc.

Graham Stabler

Beau it absolutely correct and its actually easier than the flat bed because it doesn't matter how much the can spins while the printer does its random dancing.

You would want to keep the roller to the edges of the can (not a problem as they are in several sections so just remove the inner ones) to protect the print when it is done.

You need to consider the paper pick up, if you used the propeller like I have then you could detect when the paper feeds and generate the pick up signal yourself, its just 3.3v when there is no paper and 0v when there is.

One issue however is the diameter of the can, too big and the printer will complain, it needs to have a circumference of less than the length of the maximum paper size (legal/A4).

Graham