Homebrew PCBs

The idea behind the project was to make it as multi purpose as possible.  By
collecting all the parts together then it makes it an easy project and it
can be used in any CD printer.  Step by step instructions guarantees you
results.

It is my experience that any sold plans with no parts are worthless.  You
can find information to modify your own printer in this forum but it's
probably one of those projects that you will admire but not get anything
usable unless you are /very/ dedicated and very competent.

However, after selling many kits, it is my experience that many users
experience problems with ink transfer, software
configuration and alignment.  The CD based printers have optical sensors
that align the board perfectly based on registration but many people still
can't figure out how to make the double sided image to align without
substantial help.

We also explored fully modifying some Epson printers but the inkjet models
change every 6-9 months and every head has different pinouts, specs and
can't be bought separately from the printer.  Epson's market strategy has
always been to throw out the printer once the head is gone.

We have a Xaar 128 and HP 45 compatible inkjets firing on a parallax
propeller platform and also on an XMOS G4 platform and simulations on a
Xilinx Spartan 3an.  It's pretty easy to adapt our XY gantry laser to mount
the inkjet.  The print drivers we wrote for the laser could also be recycled
into the inkjet but people are used to $15 inkjets but a Xaar 128 head is
$400 alone without any electronics, powersupply, mechanical gantry, etc so
we're waiting for a better market than DIY pcb.

CD based kits give a low effort to reward issue and you can modify the R280
base printer (information in this group by another member) to print larger
sizes once you decide it's working.

 If you weren't able to get simple toner transfer or UV developer to work
then you will an order of magnitude more issues with modifying an inkjet
printer.

Henry
On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 11:27 AM, David Griffith <dgriffi@...>wrote:

>
>
> On Mon, 25 Jan 2010, Henry Liu wrote:
>
> > On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 10:57 AM, David Griffith <dgriffi@...<dgriffi%40cs.csubak.edu>
> >wrote:
> >
> >> My experiment with Press-n-Peel and my Brother 5250 has failed
> miserably.
> >> I've had it with toner-transfer. Does anyone here use an inkjet-resist
> >> solution? Is anyone here active on the inkjet PCB yahoo group? I'm
> >> casting about for the ideal path here. Help?
>
> > Try my kit for an easy to start solution:
> > http://www.fullspectrumengineering.com/pcbinkjet.html
>
> It doesn't appear that your kit supports printing to 60 mil stock nor
> printing on anything sized differently than the CD tray adapter.
>
> I've been looking at this:
> http://www.samzu.net/product_info.php?products_id=121 which appears to be
> what I want. It can be seen in action here:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPhXmf1woXk Have you done any
> experimentations along these lines?
>
>
> --
> David Griffith
> dgriffi@... <dgriffi%40cs.csubak.edu>
>
> A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
> Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
> A: Top-posting.
> Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
>
> 
>


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