Cartesian Platform Built From Old Flat-Bed Scanners?

Obsolete flat-bed scanners seem to be commonly available in local thrift shops for a few bucks. Has anyone attempted to reuse the interior mechanisms to build a cartesian table? Seems like a natural if it can withstand the stresses.

Hi drvanthorp,

... most cartesian plotters have rails, which are fixed only on one side, the other runs free on a roll, so the rail isn't stable enough to move the extruder without deformation ...

I found on both sides feeded rails (wire-moving) in old XY-writers and used this principle on a laserplotter-design, what worked very well - if you want a sketch, i can draw it ...

For a lightweight-toolhead, as a laserdiode or so, it would go anyway.

If you want to reuse the mechanics - the X-motor (for the rail) is mostly good enough, the Y-motor (pen) is in general to weak ...

Viktor

How about moving the object around instead? Most parts are quite small and lightweight.

Hi mimarob,

... you must have a plain and stiff table under your object, so the most weigt is in the surrounding hardware, not the objects himself ...

I'm on prototyping different approaches with a diode-laser-fiber in the head, here the moving mass is so small, that a normal plotter wouldn't sense the difference to a pen ...

Viktor