Carbon Fiber Resin Jetting (7)

Modifying the Cartridges

HP cartridge c6602, Black ink.

In order to use 2D printer cartridges, I needed to hack it by filling it with binder(or resin) instead of ink. First, I needed to drain out the original ink. Instead of using a syringe to pump out the ink, I decided to crack open the cartridge. The seal between lid and the cartridge was not meant to be broken, but for the faster process, I decided to crack open the cartridge.

I made sure there is no remaining ink in the sponge.

Cartridge filled with water.

I set the water filled cartridge for around 10 minutes to make sure there was no remaining ink. The cartridge was flushed, however, channels were still filled with the original ink. It would take some printing before new resin start to be extruded.

I am going to fill the cartridge with new resin after all the mechanical parts of the printer are built.

The original standard ink's viscosity was about 2.6 mPa.s ~ 3.8 mPa.s. The UV curable resin or the binder should have similar viscosity to the standard ink's to be printable via the cartridge.

Mechanical Parts (cont.)

Piston build assembly and piston feed assembly before they are completely build.

Completed piston build assembly. I still did not get the 624 bearings, they are supposed to be delivered by tomorrow.

Two feeding pistons, one building piston,and spreader.

Mechanical parts are around 85% ~90% done. I am just waiting for the parts to be delivered. The items to be delivered are 624 bearings, dual shaft motors, building&feeding surface place springs, and inkshield controller board. This shield allows to connect a HP C6602 inkjet cartridge to the Arduino turning it into a 96dpi print platform.

A general purpose aluminum tubing (5/8'' OD, 0.049'' wall thick) is used for the spreader. This spreader will flatten and spread the powder between every layer of the printing.

Every time I was short of some components, I printed out the parts using the Lulzbot 3D printer at the lab. I am very fortunate to be able to work at such a lab with the great equipments.