Open-Source Inkjet Printer Project

[kehall]

Absolutely, but 90% of the magic is the same, just different parts are moving! The fact is my friends still need flatbed for sample printing etc, colour management testing anyway and the overlap is significant. The ink management, heads, driving electronics are some of the more interesting aspects, as are CMYK+ inks for extended gamut, so can share the technology.

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

Single pass printers tend to use industrial heads like the Toshiba CE4 (Mimaki's UJF3042/6042 MKII use them), 4 channels would be good, 8 ideal for white base coat, but all depends on materials. Never got anywhere with Epson, so no good deal on their heads. One of the Chinese companies that makes driver boards/kits for the i3200 stuff even sent all their firmware over, so hoping to have some of their boards coming in soon.

Seems lots of printers running over 2 heads uses a fiber connection for raw data streaming to the head and peeking at the firmware, it's pretty much straight streamed firing information. Might try and see if it's standardized to some degree and peek at the packets on the Mimaki and the aftermarket stuff to see if they're talking the same, or similar languages.

Heads are something that will always have to be sourced. Hoping to make open/custom driver and control boards. That said, when going to lots of heads, current handling can get pretty fun. Larger printers also need some mondo motor driving current. Playing with a JFX500 and that mofo has 3 stacked 36V 1KW PSUs packed into it.

 

[7_nebo_7]

Went across this topic. Very curios to see what is outcome going to be. I don't think you have many choices on electronics? I have done numerous projects on Mxtexr, AxWx, DxS, HxsxnSxft, and BxxX electronics. My latest experience was with i3200 and i1600 heads. Very good price per nozzle + head reliability. Keep in mind that hardware/firmware from China suppliers updating/changing almost every months. If you order today, it may not available next year or it could be not 100% plug an play. If you going to use full head speed at 43.2Khz at single drop mode, then you would need to use low viscosity ink 3-4Mpa*S. At multidrop or GrayScale mode at 21.6Khz you should be fine with viscosity up to 7Mpa*S. It will also depend on your head choose. i3200A1 or i3200U1H/L. I hope electronic supplier, able to provide you tool for wave form configuration otherwise you kind of stuck with default/limited wave forms and it is hard to match correct ink for your application. It is not hard to build a printer, it is hard to make it for a person with very limited technical knowledge to just press a button and it print you a nice image not on a paper!

 

[dreko]

Went across this topic. Very curios to see what is outcome going to be. I don't think you have many choices on electronics? I have done numerous projects on Mxtexr, AxWx, DxS, HxsxnSxft, and BxxX electronics. My latest experience was with i3200 and i1600 heads. Very good price per nozzle + head reliability. Keep in mind that hardware/firmware from China suppliers updating/changing almost every months. If you order today, it may not available next year or it could be not 100% plug an play. If you going to use full head speed at 43.2Khz at single drop mode, then you would need to use low viscosity ink 3-4Mpa*S. At multidrop or GrayScale mode at 21.6Khz you should be fine with viscosity up to 7Mpa*S. It will also depend on your head choose. i3200A1 or i3200U1H/L. I hope electronic supplier, able to provide you tool for wave form configuration otherwise you kind of stuck with default/limited wave forms and it is hard to match correct ink for your application. It is not hard to build a printer, it is hard to make it for a person with very limited technical knowledge to just press a button and it print you a nice image not on a paper!

Do you know of any companies in China, that might be making a printer that is pseudo open source? I.E. Allows end user to customize or put addon components onto a skeleton printer structure with all needed electronics?
User swappable inkjet heads, user swappable ink types/cartridges, etc?

thanks

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

There are retrofit kits readily available, and lots of printers are dame near commodity parts nowadays. Skipping ink DRM and the like will help a lot since you just need to track ink with basic electronics like float switches. At the moment, it's mostly collecting parts and specs and going from there. For ease, I think a flatbed will be the first unit.

 

[netsol]

You got your answer, about $80k of how hard

complexity increases exponentially.

 

[dreko]

There are retrofit kits readily available, and lots of printers are dame near commodity parts nowadays. Skipping ink DRM and the like will help a lot since you just need to track ink with basic electronics like float switches. At the moment, it's mostly collecting parts and specs and going from there. For ease, I think a flatbed will be the first unit.

Understood. Out of curiousity, what company do you work for? You mentioned ink mixing. Do you work for a company like STS inks? or similar?
How did all your Chinese vendor discussions work out?