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

When you look at the printhead mechanism, there is;

- a drive strap.
- a front and rear guide rail.
- a thin darkened transparency strip that passes between 2 'posts' behind
the printhead.

What's that thin transparency strip used for? I figure it's for motion
control, but how does it work? It seems uniform grey colour, but I think it
must be more than that, is it magnetized film with position markers? Or is
it more of an optical device (my eyes can't make out lines, and I don't want
to touch it)?

I'm looking at what would be required to lift the printhead chariot by
1/16". So far I've determined that the drive strap would most likely not
require displacement. That darkened strip might still be within sensor
range, tests required. The front guide rail just requires a 1/16" spacer on
the 'skate'.

The main obstacle is that rear guide rail, the printhead is clipped around
it. One possible solution is to trim the bottom of the clip 1/16" and
adding a 1/16" shim at the top of the clip. I haven't taken the chariot
apart yet, but the more I look at it, the more I think it would be possible
to modify this printer to accurately process 1/16" PCB.

Robert
:)



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