Carbon Fiber Resin Jetting (9)

Finishing Assembly

I finished building mechanical parts of the printer. I installed smooth rods, pulleys, and timing belts for X,Y, and S axis as the last steps. There are only a few minor parts to be completed such as screwing in a few more end stops. A total number of six motors are installed into the printer. All six motors worked correctly as I commanded with the pulleys and the belts.

Controlling the Nozzle

Megatronics V3.1

The main controller board for our printer is megatronics V3.1. This board controls everything needed to run the printer including 6 stepper motors, heat bed, LCD screen, and Key pad. The megatronics is wired with Inkshield which hacks and controls the HP 2D printer cartridge.

Inkshield allows to connect a HP c6602 inkjet cartridge to an Arduino turning it into a 96dpi print platform. Luckily for us, Nicholas C Lewis recognized the need for a DIYable inject platform, and currently selling Inkjet Shield. I needed to use my controller board instead of Arduino board which has different number of signal pins, and different voltage input and output. The inkshield board contain two parts, 20V Boost Converter and Ink driver. Boost converter changes the 12V to 20V. Ink driver generates the 16 signals by use 4 analog pin to control the 12 nozzles.

Future plans:

- Attach UV Lamp to the X-axis printing rod.

- Develop the connection between Inkshiled (printer head hacking device) and the Megatronics (printer controller board) and operate the printer with the resin and the carbon fiber powder loaded.