HP-45 cartridges are water-based. They dry-out and are notorious for difficult recovery/refill. Why UV ink and not direct etch-resist (Mr. Liu I'm sure you know what I mean)? Why is an FPGA required to do what you want (you provide no substantive details), these cartridges have been driven by even the slowest of MCU's in past projects.
HP-45 cartridges for $5 each - Ha! You are WRONG. The proper way to deal with HP-45's is buy original (difficult, many fakes), get a dozen or so refills out of the original (original 2x45mal Inktec kit for around $10, but these refill kits are also turning up as fakes). I know, I refilled the likes of Deskjets 850 and 970cxi for ages. HP is removing the HP-45 (real not fake) from my market (SE Asia) on purpose IMHO. Getting very hard to find.
David
--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, Henry Liu <henryjliu@...> wrote:
>
> Mass market inkjet control was always a goal of these two groups.
>
> I've developed all the high speed timing/drivers/power to use several of the
> HP 45 cartridges.
>
> Watch the following initial test video:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d13WRJaKWF8
>
> The HP 45 has 300 nozzles at 600x600dpi that are all fired in 3 stripe
> patterns as a demonstration.
>
> HP 45 cartridges are very interesting for a number of reason:
> -low cost, disposable and super cheap (as low as $5) so burning it out just
> means you throw it out
> -UV curable ink available to print PCBs (I have test results from an UV ink
> manufacturer -> this blows away all other pcb methods. Full cure in 6
> seconds).
> -bulk ink supply using HP C6119A bulk ink cartridge (same interface):
> http://www.addrex.com/hp-c6119a-bulk-black-ink-supply-system.aspx
> -high resolution 3d printing
>
> I have an intellectual property license from HP so can fire HP inkjet heads
> directly. More importantly I can buy unlimited numbers of cables, printer
> stalls and connectors from HP. Sorry can't share the docs due to NDA but I
> will offer a kit soon to integrate these designs into your own printer
> design. You still need FPGA type timing to get it work but I've wrapped it
> into a simple C++ DLL over USB. Right now the interface is simple:
> firenozzles(NozzleArray) where NozzleArray has the 300 nozzles (bit packed
> into 10x 32bit integers). 1=fire nozzle, 0 = off.
>
> I'm open to suggestions to a MCU interface. I was thinking high speed 25mhz
> SPI mode or can do 3Mbps RS232 or strobed 8bit transfer modes. 300
> nozzles∗4 colors at 600x600dpi is a LOT of data.
>
> Still lots of work to do but I do have a cost XY gantry already in
> production and will show a complete XY printer shortly.
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>