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

Seems like a pen might not be ideal. What about an inkjet head
attached to a cnc?

The reason for the CNC is that I already have a CNC with .0001"
repeatable resolution which means I don't need to do anything.

If you don't have CNC, you can build one pretty easily and it has a
lot of other useful features.

Anyway, I can set an M function in the G-code to trip a relay to turn
the ink on and off.

All I need to do is figure out how to turn the inkjet head on and off.

I know some people have modified an inkjet to take larger stock but I
haven't seen a mod which basically tells the ink jet head to shoot
ink.

After I figure out how to turn ink on and off, all I have to do is
position the Z axis to a useable distance away from the plate and let
it run.

I have several DXF-> G-code converters made for nesting parts for
laser cutting/milling so the programming the XY movement is no
problem.

Can someone point me to some resources that basically takes an inkjet
head and turns it into a mini watergun with on/off control? From my
understanding, there's a small piezoelectric disk that when you apply
a voltage shoots a bubble. Is it as simple as hooking up a wire with
TTL logic from the inkjet head to an empty M function relay on my CNC?

This would also be very cool as I figure out how the inkjet head
works, perhaps I can fill it with some sort two part glue instead of
ink. Two inkjet heads would shoot to the same spot making a hard
cured epoxy spot. Voila -> cheap 3d printer with a HUGE print area!

Thanks.
Henry
www.fullspectrumengineering.com