Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Homebrew PCBs

Thought I'd make a separate thread for this subject, this is purely
mechanicals, not ink.

- all the plastic housings come off (busted 1/2 of the top hidden clips on
the side covers, but who cares, I'm not putting them back on, and hot glue
or silicone works wonders if I do).
- the 'working' chassis remains attached to the plastic base plate,
convenient to have the stock printer rubber legs.
- all the buttons and lights are conveniently on top and easy to access.
- power, USB and parallel cables are out the rear and out of the way.
- all the front pizza-wheels come off with easy-push release clips (none
broken).
- the rear paper holder is held by only 3 screws, easy to remove, I'm
keeping it on to complete ink debugging.
- the rear paper holder is at an angle of about 50 degrees, it is NOT
straight-through, I would expect thin PCB to get a wicked curl.
- the passage is perfectly straight-through once the rear paper holder is
removed.
- feeder rollers easily accept 1/16" thick PCB.
- the printhead does NOT clear a 1/16" thick PCB.
- the printhead does clear 1/32" thick PCB, but it is close, I would lift
the front of the printhead chariot just a bit for safety.
- lifting the front of the printhead chariot is easy by adding a teflon skid
under the front 'skate', but that tilts the printhead at an angle, I would
expect a distortion effect on the print quality if lifted too high.
- trying to lift the entire printhead chariot (front and back) seems to be
close to impossible (it can be done, printhead chariot and feeder mechanism
have separate motors, requires 'serious' work).
- THOSE WITH LONG HAIR, WATCH YOUR HEAD, it's very easy to get a strand in
the spinning wheels, and that's got to hurt.
- those with long fingers, watch yourselves as well, the printhead chariot
is more powerful than it looks.

That's all I could think of as important to the task at hand. Any questions
or stuff you want me to check, let'em rip.

Robert
:)



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